e, I'll tell yours.
Hold out your hand, and cross mine with a dollar, and I'll tell you as
big a lie as you ever _penned_ a _galderli Gorgio_ [a green Gentile]."

"Well," exclaimed the gypsy, "I'll believe that you can tell fortunes or
do anything! _Dordi_! _dordi_! but this is wonderful. Yet you're not
the first Romany _rani_ [lady] I ever met. There's one in Delaware: a
_boridiri_ [very great] lady she is, and true Romany,--_flick o the jib
te rinkeni adosta_ [quick of tongue and fair of face]. Well, I am glad
to see you." "Who is that talking there?" cried a man's voice from
within the tent. He had heard Romany, and he spoke it, and came out
expecting to see familiar faces. His own was a study, as his glance
encountered mine. As soon as he understood that I came as a friend, he
gave way to infinite joy, mingled with sincerest grief that he had not at
hand the means of displaying hospitality to such distinguished Romanys as
we evidently were. He bewailed the absence of strong drink. Would we
have some tea made? Would I accompany him to the next tavern, and have
some beer? All at once a happy thought struck him. He went into the
tent and brought out a piece of tobacco, which I was compelled to accept.
Refusal would have been unkind, for it was given from the very heart.
George Borrow tells us that, in Spain, a poor gypsy once brought him a
pomegranate as a first acquaintanceship token. A gypsy is a gypsy
wherever you find him.

These were very nice people. The old dame took a great liking to L., and
showed it in pleasant manners. The couple were both English, and liked
to talk with me of the old country and the many mutual friends whom we
had left behind. On another visit, L. brought a scarlet silk
handkerchief, which she had bound round her head and tied under her chin
in a very gypsy manner. It excited, as I anticipated, great admiration
from the old dame.

"_Ah kenna tute dikks rinkeni_--now you look nice. That's the way a
Romany lady ought to wear it! Don't she look just as Alfi used to look?"
she cried to her husband. "Just such eyes and hair!"

Here L. took off the _diklo_, or handkerchief, and passed it round the
gypsy woman's head, and tied it under her chin, saying,--

"I am sure it becomes you much more than it does me. Now you look
nice:--

"'Red and yellow for Romany,
And blue and pink for the Gorgiee.'"

We rose to depart, the old dame offered back to L. her handkerchi