. It can only fall to
the lot of a few to see Annie, the Gipsy model; but the curious may look
upon her counterpart, only of heroic size, in Clytie, at the British
Museum. Annie has a face of exquisite Grecian form, and a hand so
delicate that it has been painted more than once in the 'portrait of a
titled lady.' When she was a very little girl, she told us, hawking
laces in a basket one day, a gentleman met her at the West-end who was a
painter, and from that day to the present Annie has earned a living--and
at times of great distress maintained all the family--by the fees she
received as a model. Her mother had had nine children, of whom eight
were living; and three of the family are constantly employed as models.
Annie is one, the young fellow who was watched over by the bantam was
another, and a boy of four was the third. The father is of pure Gipsy
blood, but the mother is an Oxfordshire woman, and neither of them
possess any striking characteristic in their faces; yet all their girls
are singularly beautiful, and their sons handsome fellows. They have got
a reputation for beauty now, and ladies have, but without success, tried
to negotiate for the possession of the youngest. Never before had we
seen such fair faces, such dainty limbs, such exquisite eyes, as were
possessed by the Gipsy occupants of that caravan. Annie was as modest
and gentle-voiced and mannered as she was beautiful; and there came a
flush of trouble over her fair face as she told us that not being able to
read or write had 'been against' her all her life. There was more
refinement about Annie and her mother than we had discovered amongst
others with whom we had conversed. Thus, Annie, speaking of her
grandfather, laid great emphasis on the assertion that he was a fine man.
He lived to be 104, she said, and walked as upright as a young man to his
death. He went about crying 'chairs to mend,' in that very locality, up
to within a short time of his death, and all the old ladies employed him
because he was so handsome. She was playing with a baby girl as she
talked with us, and the child fixed her black eyes upon her sister's
face, and crooned with baby pleasure. 'What is baby's name,' we asked?
'Comfort,' replied Annie. 'We were hopping one year' said the mother,
'and there was a young woman in the party I took to very much, and her
name was Comfort. Coming away from the hop grounds, the caravans had to
cross a river, and while we were