sort of badinage passed:--“Where do you come from?” “O, we have come all the way from Epsom to meet our young man here, and he has deceived us.”--“Well, I hope no young man will deceive you more cruelly.” “Dear gentleman, if you won’t give us sixpence, give us a penny then to buy us a glass of ale!” “O, you are no ale drinkers--what should you think of a glass of gin?” “I should like something, for I am _very_ tired: and what is sixpence to you?--you have a very good horse in your chaise; I have no doubt you are a gentleman of independent fortune--_do_ give us sixpence!” “No, I wish I were half as rich as you are.” Here the Queen of Love and Beauty stopped, and turned round with an air of very beautiful disdain. As she went back to join her companion, we were again struck with the grace of her form, and the buoyancy of her carriage. My impression was that these ladies were merely acting beggars; but we soon found that they were acting gipsies; for they offered to tell almost every body’s fortunes, and actually did tell some. As we returned, we met them coming up a hollow woody lane, near Bookham Common, about a mile from where we left them; and behold! they and the gentleman who was there sitting on the stile--a military-looking man with light mustachios--were walking familiarly on together. It was evident that they had found “their young man!” It was a group worthy of the pencil of Stothard; and on the opposite side of the lane, from a cottage above it, out were come a countrywoman, and six or seven children, of different ages, in their rustic costume, and stood to look at them--a little picture after the very heart of Collins. The moment our actresses saw us, they motioned their escort to move off to the other side of the way, and to walk on, as though he did not belong to them, and again renewed their importunity as we passed. I merely smiled, and moved my hat to them. As we proceeded, I stopped and asked of all the country people I met--who was that gentleman? and who the ladies dressed as beggars? The miller thought the gentleman was from Bookham Lodge, the seat of Captain Blackwood--he heard a large party of gentry was just come there; “but the women, sir, they are Dutch women!” Dutch women! Broom-girls, in fact! Broom-girls, with legs and arms like young elephants! and broad solid figures, as if cut out of blocks of wood--how very like those slim and elegant creatures! But it was enough for the worthy miller, whose fortune they _had_ offered to tell, that they had on short bedgowns and dark petticoats. A grocer from Epsom, with his spring-cart, going as they do all round the country, from one gentleman’s house to another, had had his fortune told by them, and was lost in amaze at the announcement that he had had nine children, six of whom were still living--five girls and one boy; the very facts to a hair! A farmer and his wife at Stoke, never dreamt that the gentleman whom they had noticed belonged to these “young baggages of beggars,”