"Jacyntha, just run," must have haunted her dreams at night. She found a spare ten minutes to write a postcard, in violet ink, to her home-people, "from this their daughter, very, very affectionate," and to peep into a morning paper to see whether any more earthquake shocks had been recorded; and when dinner was over she enjoyed quite a refreshing chat with the man who drove the fruitand-vegetable cart, and stopped it for half an hour outside our gate, while he gossiped and bargained with the cook and the nurse from the opposite villa, and heard how well the baby was learning to say, "Viva, Sr. Antonio." Jacyntha's purchases were soon made a few carrots and beans and a lemon or two; but she was left in peace to chatter awhile with her neighbors, as cook and Tia Joaquina were probably enjoying an after-dinner siesta. But Jacyntha was too conscientious to linger unduly; and on looking into the ironing-room a little later, I saw her working away with her aunt, while she crooned some interminable old song to the accompaniment of the rhythmical thump of the iron. Towards evening she was free to fetch her sewing and sit for an hour on the kitchen-steps, enjoying the fresh breeze after her hot and tiring afternoon. The cook and Tia Joaquina were there also, and the three talked in complete accord, happily forgetful of the several differences of opinion which had disturbed their peace during the day. In that leisure hour Jacyntha was making something for herself: a piece of crochet-lace, in a very pretty and intricate pattern. But my last glimpse of her before bedtime showed her at work again, busily mending a pile of the recently ironed clothes. She gave us a rather sleepy but very contented smile, and the pleasant Portuguese sal utation: "A very good night, ladies,sleep well,-until to-morrow, if it please God." III. HIGH-LIFE BELOW STAIRS. It was a red-letter day for Maria Palmyra: she was to entertain a visitor of her own, and, moreover, one who had never before been to the "new house" which was the pride of Palmyra's heart. It was not her house, though to tell the truth it might well have been, judging from the beneficent rule which she bore over the very youthful and newly married English couple whose guide, philosopher, and friend she had been through their first struggles with Portuguese housekeeping. Two years had passed since those early days, and now Palmyra was content to let her young mistress hold the reins of household management, whilst she "stood by" ready to help in case of emergency. To-day, an English friend was coming to visit the senhora, and was bringing her own special maid, a trusted retainer of many years' service. It did not take Palmyra long to get through her work that morning, and to hustle her underlings through their own tasks; her next duty was to visit the cook, alternately friend and enemy, and to hint that some extra delicacy might be added to the usual mid-day menu of boiled dried cod and potatoes. Fortunately, Josephina, cook, was in one of her best moods this morningand assured Menina (Miss) Palmyra that a good dish of stewed French beans, with plenty of tomato and onion, should be forthcoming: they further decided to club together and buy a water-melon when the fruit-cart came round; and, having desired the young servant to put out a clean tablecloth and to see that the chipped plates were arranged in the least conspicuous parts of the table, Palmyra retired upstairs to dress for her visitor. When her plump figure was arrayed rious common friends in service at in a black silk skirt, and a flowered silk blouse, very cleverly evolved by her own skilful fingers from the relics of a trousseau-cloak of her senhora's, -when her watch and chain, and rings were put on: no pinchbeck, but heirlooms, and gifts from past mistresses and friends,-Palmyra fetched her "company" work, and sat down by her window to await the arrival of the guests. At last the carriage appeared, slowly approaching, and Palmyra ran downstairs, not to open the door, for her mistress was sitting on the veranda at the top of the steps, but to stand smilingly by till the ladies had greeted one another, and the visitor could turn round and say: "Well, Palmyra, you see I have brought Candida to spend the day with you." But no such haphazard greeting sufficed for the Portuguese ladies. Palmyra made a graceful bow to Candida, who was a neat little body in dark dress and close bonnet, and said: "How do you do, ma'am (minha senhora); I am very pleased to make your acquaintance," to whom Candida replied: "And I am equally pleased to make yours, madam,”—whereupon they ceremoniously embraced one another on both cheeks, and retired to their own quarters. This struck the key-note of the day's companionship: a courteous friendliness, never relaxing into familiarity, but allowing of a good deal of confidential intercourse. Senhora Palmyra first escorted Senhora Candida over the house, listening with delighted smiles to her guest's praises of all she saw, but expressing her conviction that Candida's own residence must also be rich in comforts and conveniences, beautiful views, &c., &c. They then sat down for a long chat, first on matters in general-the tiresomeness of young girls, the bad tempers of cooks, the vicissitudes of "ironing-day"; and then, finding that they possessed vaBlackwood's Magazine. one some of the town houses, they proceeded to a right-down good gossip which lasted till young Florinda ran up to call them to their dinner. This was eaten at leisure, with many expressions of enjoyment on the part of the guest, who also did not fail to drink "to your health" in her mug of red country wine. An hour was then passed in more or less drowsy and desultory chat, with wide-awake interlude in which Candida explained to Palmyra a new stitch in the crochet-work at which she was famous. As the day grew cooler, Palmyra took her friend for a stroll, through the garden, and then down to the village: as they passed by the empty house at the foot of the hill, the caretaker, a great ally, insisted on picking them each a bunch of flowers; and as they went on, they had the quite unique luck of meeting two friends-a butler from the city, whose "family" were now in their country house, and a young carpenter from the next village. With these swains in attendance, they were addressed as Senhor Antonio and Senhor Manuel,-the ladies strolled homewards in great content; many compliments were exchanged, and the talk rambled on about earthquakes and high winds, and those badmannered ones, the Republicans-all our friends being staunch Monarchists, till the quartette arrived once more at the garden gate, where they reluctantly parted company. The carriage came round, too, and Candida had to depart, embracing and thanking Palmyra, they had by now sworn eternal friendship,-who on her part looked forward to a speedy return visit, and informed her mistress emphatically that: "that Candida is a good creaturevery steady, a very good person"; and without doubt Candida was giving her mistress an equally favorable criticism of Senhora Palmyra! (To be concluded.) A PROOF OF METTLE. Napolean Boswell, aged twelve Gypsy; address, North of England or elsewhere; occupation, no more settled than residence came clattering into the camp in a smother of dust, a drove of turbulent Shetland ponies tossing, scuffling, plunging round about him, and making all the noise of a Valkyrie ride. A girl sat on the steps of a caravan, clasping a knee with her two hands, and critically surveyed his home-coming. She gave her verdict in strident tones. "You can't ride like Wisdom Leenot you!" To tell the truth this was a very mortifying reception for Napolean. A year ago they had been friendly to the point of the contriving of a secret marriage, but then their ways had parted. He knew that he should find her in this particular camping place, the night before Aldwark Fair, and he had therefore ridden into camp in his very best style. The more excellent Wisdom Lee was a swarthy shockheaded hobbledehoy, and was engaged in wiping down a horse with a wisp of straw. looked up grinning from below the horse's belly. He down the lane to where under shelter of a small pine-wood stood his father's gaily painted and prosperous-looking caravan. Very moodily he set himself to drive his ponies, for their refreshing, into the stream, and pondered over the changefulness of womankind. It was one of those camping places beloved of Romanichels. It lay not a hundred yards from the broad high road, but in the kindly concealment of thick pine-wood. The turf was firm under the heavy caravans. The grass was rich and plentiful beneath the hedgerows. A stream slipped gently along by the side of the track wherein the dusty road-weary beasts could plash knee-deep and draw long draughts. Once upon a time such camping places were common enough. Nowadays they are rare, and moreover it is now the habit of the police to talk by telephone and hunt on bicycles. From the caravan door hard by, where Poley stood in deep thought among his ponies, there shuffled a very ancient man. He looked like some nearly vanquished pine-tree of the wood beaten down after many years of fighting the wind and rain. Like its "You see'd me ride that bay colt bark, his hands and face were almost yesterday, Gentilla?" he said. "Oh, yes, Wisdom; I see'd you ride that bay colt. That was something like riding, that was." Jealousy lit a fire in Napolean's breast, and its heat shrivelled up all the powers of repartee in the brain. When he slid down from his pony's back all he could say was: "Huh! Toadface, you speak 'bout one true word in ten. I'll never trouble myself about your cleverness. It's just pisoned with lies." He turned his back upon them, whistling courageously, and strode away black and fissured with wrinkles, but the eyes which looked out from under the grizzly locks shone like birds' eyes. The fire of a fierce and turbulent life still smouldered there. The old man stood for a moment in the doorway and gazed out. "Oh, Mi-Duvel (my God)," he said. "De same old hatshin' tan (stopping place). De very same." This ancient son of the Kâlo Rat (black blood) had never mastered the elusive "th" of the Gajos in all the long years he had gone in and out among them and trafficked with them. He peered eagerly up and down the lane, and then tremulously his house. But on the way up the called: "Alabyna, Ho! Alabyna!" and once more, "Alabyna, my gal, Alabyna!" Poley looked up with a scared white face. 66 "'Pon my soul, he is a-callin' to my blessed dead grandmother. He is seein' ghosts, I'm certin sure." Poley was dismayed not without reason, because never once since his grandmother's death, two years ago, had he heard the old man utter the sacred name of the partner of a long rough life; and moreover, after the merciful and curious custom of the Gypsy folk the "forenames" of two near relatives had been so modified that the old man might never be constrained either to speak or to hear the syllables that would sharpen the sting of his desolation. "Gran'dad," he said under his breath, "she's gone away, you know, has old -old-" He stopped, for he could not speak the name. "What are you saying, foolish boy?" muttered the old man, turning an anger-lit eye on him. "Of course, I know Alabyna's gone to de town, gone wid her baskets. She goes every day." “No, Gran'dad," Poley stammered, "she's gone-to-gone to " "What do you know 'bout it, fine Ignorance?" said the old man testily. "She'll be back now almost d'rectly, and dâdi! if I don't believe dere ain't no sticks for de fire ready." Old Zachary Boswell climbed painfully down the caravan steps and hobbled off. Poley shook his head perplexedly as he watched the old man slowly disappear into the shade and silence of the wood. There is no pride of possession like the pride of possession of news, be it bad or good, and as Poley's father with the rest of the drove could not now be very far away from the camp, Poley felt it imperative to hasten forward to meet him on the road and apprise him of the evil that threatened lane he could not refrain from loudly imparting the intelligence at each caravan door he passed that his grandfather was going crazed and had taken to seeing ghosts in the camping place. At the Lovell caravan Genty was still sitting on the steps. She was alone. "Say, Genty," he began, "my Gran'dad "I don't care anything about your Gran'dad," she said haughtily. "I don't, because what I said just now was true gospel truth-that you can't ride near so well as Wisdom Lee." Poley forgot the impending family calamity and flared up. "You lie, girl," he said; "dere isn't a horse in my dad's drove I cannot ride." She started up. "Ride dat one, den!" she said triumphantly, pointing with outstretched finger up the road. Big Napolean Boswell, father of little Napolean Boswell, had just come into view, riding with care a tall chestnut horse, big of bone and sinewy, but with roving eye and twitching ear, and marked by every possible sign and token as belonging to the equine criminal class. Poley saw and flushed crimson. ""Tis a blood 'oss," he said, "and a hot 'un, but I'd ride him any day only my father says no one is to touch him but hisself." "There! I told you!" Gentilla snapped out viciously between her white teeth. Poley stood dumfounded before this example of maiden mutability. This was a Gentilla he had never seen before, and who had come from he knew not where. "Well, if my dad would let me!" he protested, "I would ride him as easy as ever Wisdom Lee would. He ain't no jockey of any sort." "You only talk like my mammy's jackdaw," said Gentilla scornfully. "You only talk and don't do nothing. I'd disdain to be always galderin' 'bout stars through a rent in the blanket, what I could do." "You're a witch," he said fiercely, his patience exhausted, "a real thoroughbred 'un, and I know better than to be wasting my time talking to such as you. It's a 'mendjus unlucky thing to stand talking to a witch. There, if I don't see now as you've actually got cross eyes, gal." "You shameless boy," she called in tremulous anger, "calling me names like that. Of all the brazenBut he had already darted away in pursuit of his father. The disquieting tidings of his sire's behavior so impressed the elder Napolean that he sought immediate counsel with his wife. "Well," she said, "I'm certain sure he were all right at breakfast time. He was cussing of me awful about the bacon as didn't suit him, and he threw a plate at me and broke it. He was quite hisself then." one never-to-be-forgotten scene of which he had once been a spectator passed and re-passed before his eyes with a sickening frequency. It was the dark night afer old Alabyna's funeral, and in a silent semi-circle about his grandfather's caravan stood a crowd of his people gazing. And out of the semicircle Zachary Boswell groped his way with tottering step but never a word on his lips, and he took a living brand from the fire and, climbing into the caravan, slowly and solemnly applied the smouldering flame first to the bedclothes, then to the curtains, and then here and then there, till hungry fire sprang up all about him, illuminating the whole interior. Then the old man staggered down the steps, his arms outstretched and howling as in the grip of pain, and on every side the Gypsies began to weep and lament with him with a mournful moaning sound like the wind in the trees. Then the awestruck Poley beheld the flames climbing silently all over the caravan, and bursting out from the roof, until at last the wild crackling of the shrivelling timber ended in a crash and the home of the old man sank in a shapeless roaring heap upon "If you ask me, I believe it's dis hatshin' tan (camping place) that's to account for it," said Napolean perplexedly. "It used to be a great stopping place for my dad's people in ancient times, I mind well, and true enough we haven't drawed in here since my blessed mother died. I feel sure it's the ground. Then old Zachary sat him de place that has witchered him." "And I don't seem to like the place myself, man," said Trinali his wife, shivering as she looked out among the darkling pine-trees. "It's a ghosty alarmin' sort of place as ever I see. Sho! We'll go straight away off after Aldwark Fair." They all shook their black heads in disparagement of the locality, and then the old man was brought gently back with a bundle of sticks in his arms. But he smoked his little black pipe very peacefully over the fire that night and spoke no more about Alabyna. As Poley lay under the brown tent half asleep, half awake, blinking at the down upon the low wall, his head in his hands, sobbing as if his heart would break. The elder Napolean went up to bim. "Oh, my dear dad, don't go on like that! You'll drive me mad!" he said, weaving his arms protectingly round him. To him his father, in mournful tones, "I can't help it, 'Polean. I can't help it; I've lost my dear, dear wife, and I've lost my beautiful living wagon, and I've lost everything, and as for me I'm alone, like a lost sheep on de mountains." Poley did not know it, but just so had his far-away forefathers done for |