"Oh!" resumed Natalie, with something of a shudder, "'tis Olga Paulowna: don't let her speak to us in our parting hour, Carl, lest we be compelled to hear her sing, and that may perhaps bode evil. The dvornick, I understand, has thrice by dog and whip driven away this gipsy girl, who has come to the house again and again, ostensibly to seek alms, but doubtless only to steal or work mischief by her cunning; for though our Russian gipsies are not allowed to pitch their tents on any land without the express consent of the owner, this girl's brother, Nicholas Paulovitch (as he calls himself), a half-blood, has permanently settled on our estate, somewhere in the forests, though he is despised and loathed by the peasantry, whom, doubtless, he loathes and hates most cordially in turn. I do wish she would go away without being ordered to do so." Little did Natalie know that those ill-requited visits of the poor gipsy girl had direct reference to the life and safety of him whose hand clasped hers so tenderly and confidingly. "Faugh!" said Natalie, with increasing annoyance; "she is about to sing,--something naughty no doubt,--but her voice will soon summon the dvornick." Many of those female wanderers in Russia can sing divinely; and it is on record that even the great Catalani was so enchanted by the melodious voice of a gipsy girl at Moscow, that she took from her own shoulders a superb shawl, which had been given to her by the Empress, and placed it on those of the nomadic singer, "as a tribute from art to nature." And Olga now began to sing with great sweetness one of those Russian songs, by which the gipsies, to flatter the people, sought to foretell the downfall of the Crescent; and many such prophetic strains were current even during the war in the Crimea, as foreshadowing the fate of the "sick man" at Constantinople. "Years after years shall roll, Ages o'er ages glide. Before the world's control Shall check the Crescent's pride. Banished from place to place, Where'er the ocean's roar, The mighty gipsy race, Shall visit every shore. "But when the hundredth year Shall three times doubled be, Then shall the end appear Of all their slavery. Then shall the warlike powers From distant climes return, Egypt again be ours, While the Turkish domes shall burn! "Again the Christian's cross Shall over Stamboul wave, And ruin, weeds, and moss, Mark the last Sooltan's grave! Again shall Christian bells Ring where the Muezzins cry, When across the Dardanelles The Moslem hordes shall fly! "So Egypt shall be freed, Her tribes return once more, Their flocks and herds to feed Where their fathers dwelt of yore: When all our warlike powers From distant climes return, Then Egypt shall be ours, While the Turkish turrets burn!"