n whom a whispered word of Romany
acts like wild-fire. Great as my experience has been I can really no
more explain the intensity of this yearning, this _rapport_, than I can
fly. My own fancy for gypsydom is faint and feeble compared to what I
have found in many others. It is in them like the love for opium, for
music, for love itself, or for acting. I confess that there is to me a
nameless charm in the strangely, softly flowing language, which gives a
sweeter sound to every foreign word which it adopts, just as the melody
of a forest stream is said to make more musical the songs of the birds
who dwell beside it. Thus Wentzel becomes Wenselo and Anselo; Arthur,
Artaros; London, Lundra; Sylvester, Westaros. Such a phrase as "_Dordi_!
_dovelo adoi_?" (See! what is that there?) could not be surpassed for
mere beauty of sound.

It is apropos of living double lives, and playing parts, and the charm of
stealing away unseen, like naughty children, to romp with the tabooed
offspring of outlawed neighbors, that I write this, to introduce a letter
from a lady, who has kindly permitted me to publish it. It tells its own
story of two existences, two souls in one. I give it as it was written,
first in Romany, and then in English:--

_Febmunti_ 1_st_.

MIRO KAMLO PAL,--Tu tevel mishto ta shun te latcherdum me akovo
kurikus tacho Romany tan akai adre o gav. Buti kamaben lis sas ta
dikk mori foki apopli; buti kushti ta shun moro jib. Mi-duvel atch
apa mande, si ne shomas pash naflo o Gorginess, vonk' akovo vias. O
waver divvus sa me viom fon a swell saleskro haben, dikdom me dui
Romani chia beshin alay apre a longo skamin adre --- Square. Kalor
yakkor, kalor balyor, lullo diklas apre i sherria, te lender trushnia
aglal lender piria. Mi-duvel, shomas pash divio sar kamaben ta dikav
lender! Avo! kairdum o wardomengro hatch i graia te sheldom avri,
"_Come here_!" Yon penden te me sos a rani ta dukker te vian sig
adosta. Awer me saldom te pendom adre Romanis: "Sarishan miri
dearis! Tute don't jin mandy's a Romany!" Yon nastis patser lende
kania nera yakkor. "Mi-duvel! Sa se tiro nav? putchde yeck. "Miro
nav se Britannia Lee." Kenna-sig yon diktas te me sos tachi, te
penden amengi lender navia shanas M. te D. Lis sos duro pa lende ta
jin sa a Romani rani astis jiv amen Gorgios, te dikk sa Gorgiou