ways of
these people. For her, personally, their wildness and their freedom had a
certain fascination, and she was heard in her gayest moments to remark
that she would rather like to be stolen and adopted by a gypsy tribe.

Whenever Annie had an opportunity, she chatted with the gypsy wives, and
allowed them to tell her fortune, and listened eagerly to their
narratives. When a little child she had once for several months been
under the care of a nurse who was a reclaimed gypsy, and this girl had
given her all kinds of information about them. Annie often felt that she
quite loved these wild people, and Mother Rachel was the first gypsy she
cordially shrank from and disliked.

When the little girl started now on her wild-goose chase after Nan, she
was by no means devoid of a plan of action. The knowledge she had taken
so many years to acquire came to her aid, and she determined to use it
for Nan's benefit. She knew that the gypsies, with all their wandering
and erratic habits, had a certain attachment, if not for homes, at least
for sites; she knew that as a rule they encamped over and over again in
the same place; she knew that their wanderings were conducted with
method, and their apparently lawless lives governed by strict self-made
rules.

Annie made straight now for the encampment, which stood in a little dell
at the other side of the fairies' field. Here for weeks past the gypsies'
tents had been seen; here the gypsy children had played, and the men and
women smoked and lain about in the sun.

Annie entered the small field now, but uttered no exclamation of surprise
when she found that all the tents, with the exception of one, had been
removed, and that this tent also was being rapidly taken down by a man
and a girl, while a tall boy stood by, holding a donkey by the bridle.

Annie wasted no time in looking for Nan here. Before the girl and the man
could see her, she darted behind a bush, and removing her little bag of
money, hid it carefully under some long grass; then she pulled a very
bright yellow sash out of her pocket, tied it round her blue cotton
dress, and leaving her little shawl also on the ground, tripped gaily up
to the tent.

She saw with pleasure that the girl who was helping the man was about her
own size. She went up and touched her on the shoulder.

"Look here," she said, "I want to make such a pretty play by-and-by--I
want to play that I'm a gypsy girl. Will you give me your clothes, if I