“The gipsy speaks truth,” he cried, “when he says she is the most beautiful woman in the world, but he speaks false when he says that she will ever love him; for he has stolen that cup, and I shall take it from him, and if he tries to stop me, why then I will fight him, and let every one see who is the better fellow of the two.” But when the gipsy had seen the rhyme upon the mat, he stood and stared as if he were made of stone, and said no word to the potter, and indeed scarcely seemed to notice that he had taken away the cup from him. Then the potter turned to the man who owned the mat and said, “If you will sell me your mat I will pay you handsomely for it, and I beg you to tell me who made it, and where you got it, for I would like to buy some more like it.” The traveller was much astonished, but he told the potter that it was made by a woman who lived in a village a little way off, and she sat by her doorway and wove mats, with a gipsy boy to help her; and she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen on earth, with eyes just like blue cornflowers and hair like golden corn. Then the potter took his bowl and the mat and started to go home, but the gipsy slunk out of the room and went into the night, and nobody noticed him. Meantime the potter’s wife continued to grieve and lament, for in spite of her taking the gipsy boy’s advice, and telling all things that she loved her husband and wished him back, he did not come back to her; and though she wove her rhyme into every mat that she made, she despaired of the potter’s ever seeing one. The only thing which seemed to console her, was the little brown clay cup that the gipsy woman had thrown for her, before she died. As it had never been baked in the oven, the clay was dry and hard and cracked, and it was a sorry thing to look at, but still the potter’s wife kept it beside her, and would drink out of nothing else, and from time to time she kissed it, and laid her cheek against it. The gipsy boy said to her—