Certainly his school-mother was not too kind. He could not understand her to-day, but, having chosen her, he felt somehow that it was his bounden duty to be as good as possible, and to think as kindly as possible about her. So he very determinedly shut away from his little mind all unkind thoughts with regard to Harriet. Of course, he was a troublesome little boy, and he ought to have known all about borrowing ten, and he ought to understand now why little boys should stay in very hot rooms while big girls went away to fairs and merry-go-rounds, and delightful shows full of queer people. Oh, yes: of course, it was all right; only he did wish his head was not so swimmy--yes, that was how he expressed his feeling. He sank down at last on a very uncomfortable sofa with a broken spring, and the next minute fell fast asleep. He did not know, poor little boy, how long he slept; but when he awoke he felt very much startled and puzzled, for it had grown quite late, and the sun had gone away, and the room was no longer so hot. The clothes, too, had all been taken down from their lines, and he could see across the ugly garden. It was a very small garden; but there was a gate at the further end, and the gate was standing open; and beyond the gate was a field with a path leading across it; and, lo and behold! at the far, far end of the field was a very brown man standing quite still, and holding a lot of baskets in his hand. They were baskets of all sorts and shapes and sizes; and there was something about the man and the baskets which caused Ralph's heart to beat. He went cautiously to the window, and gazed across the garden and across the fields at the man. The man was very brown, and he carried baskets. Gipsies carried baskets; they always did; Ralph had heard so. He did not believe that there was ever a basket in the whole world that had not once been carried by a gipsy. Suppose he went and talked to the man; there would be no harm in that; it would be interesting to him. Harriet had told him to stay where he was, but then Harriet did not know that there would be--first, an open window, and then an open gate, and beyond the gate a gipsy--the very person Ralph longed to see! The temptation was too much for him. He was too tired, and too lonely, and too much a very little boy to resist it. Swiftly he rose from his uncomfortable sofa, pushed back his tumbled hair, and flying, first across the garden and then across the field, reached the brown man's side. "Please," said Ralph earnestly, looking up with his brown eyes at the brown face, "is you a gipsy?" "I be that, little master," said the man, and he gazed down inquisitively and perhaps not unkindly at Ralph. Ralph looked at him with great wonder and intense curiosity. "Wot be yer wanting o' me, little master?" said the man. "I love gipsies!" said Ralph. "Do yer, indeed? And wot's yer name?"