ateful head on her skirt,
the spring trickled on, and the woman read--if that can be called
reading where the eyes wander inward after every sentence.

After a little of this she was disturbed by a thick-set, middle-aged
farmer rattling by in a springless cart. At sight of her he stopped,
stared, but not too curiously, got out and addressed her:

"Peddler's goods, I see," he said.

She nodded.

"Had you any thoughts o' going up Endover way?" he inquired, "it's out
o' way, somewhat, but my wife was wishing only yesterday for some
cooking ware, and but that you need to make village by dark----"

"I do not need to, unless I choose," she assured him; "my time is my
own."

"Ay, is it?" he said. "There's few trades can say that, these
days,--is that why you gypsies take to this one, maybe?"

"Maybe," she said, smiling gravely.

"You're new to these parts, I think," he went on, "though there'll be
plenty o' your kind before summer's gone--few as thrifty to look at,
though. I'll lay your cloth's not rotten."

"That's true," she said, rising and beginning to wash her simple
cooking pots. "Which turn for Endover, farmer?"

"First to the left after Appleyard's woods," he began, and at her start
and cry of "Appleyard?" he explained, "Why, yes, it's hard to change
old names. Appleyards ran out when I was a boy, but the name sticks.
Hundred years ago, an old farmer Appleyard owned most o' what you'll
see from here. My granny knowed one of 'em well; a well-to-do woman
she was, and her husband got all the land, or near it, account o' the
brother's running away to foreign parts."

Her brown eyes held him and he warmed to his tale.

"You've heard all this, maybe?" he hazarded.

She shook her head.

"I knew there was such a family, once, somewhere about these parts,"
she said, "but I did not know just where----"

"Why, it was just here," he went on slowly, looking around, "here and
no other spot, whatever, Mrs. Peddler. Here's what granny called
'Gypsy's Spring,' 'account of their always searching the best water,
you see--like yourself. Gypsy Spring in Appleyard Lower Field, she'd
tell us, and there was where he met the gypsy and the land changed
hands and the name ran out."

"Who met the gypsy?" she asked, her eyes large and mellow on him.

"Who? Why, young John Appleyard, Mrs. Peddler, and married her, and
off with them both! They're all for roaming, you see--_you_ know.
'But she'll be back, sooner or lat