o not come about the house. The
approaching wedding, however, has made a kind of Saturnalia at the Hall,
and has caused a suspension of all sober rule. It has produced a great
sensation throughout the female part of the household; not a housemaid
but dreams of wedding favours, and has a husband running in her head.
Such a time is a harvest for the gipsies: there is a public footpath
leading across one part of the park, by which they have free ingress,
and they are continually hovering about the grounds, telling the servant
girls' fortunes, or getting smuggled in to the young ladies.

I believe the Oxonian amuses himself very much by furnishing them with
hints in private, and bewildering all the weak brains in the house with
their wonderful revelations. The general certainly was very much
astonished by the communications made to him the other evening by the
gipsy girl: he kept a wary silence towards us on the subject, and
affected to treat it lightly; but I have noticed that he has since
redoubled his attentions to Lady Lillycraft and her dogs.

I have seen also Phoebe Wilkins, the housekeeper's pretty and love-sick
niece, holding a long conference with one of these old sibyls behind a
large tree in the avenue, and often looking round to see that she was
not observed. I make no doubt that she was endeavouring to get some
favourable augury about the result of her love quarrel with young
Ready-Money, as oracles have always been more consulted on love affairs
than upon anything else. I fear, however, that in this instance the
response was not so favourable as usual, for I perceived poor Phoebe
returning pensively towards the house; her head hanging down, her hat in
her hand, and the riband trailing along the ground.

At another time, as I turned a corner of a terrace, at the bottom of the
garden, just by a clump of trees, and a large stone urn, I came upon a
bevy of the young girls of the family, attended by this same Phoebe
Wilkins. I was at a loss to comprehend the meaning of their blushing and
giggling, and their apparent agitation, until I saw the red cloak of a
gipsy vanishing among the shrubbery. A few moments after, I caught sight
of Master Simon and the Oxonian stealing along one of the walks of the
garden, chuckling and laughing at their successful waggery; having
evidently put the gipsy up to the thing, and instructed her what to say.

[Illustration: A Gipsy Party]

After all, there is something strangely plea