r Gorgios. Let the reader imagine the
burnt-sienna wild-cat eyed old sorceress performing before a credulous
farm-wife and her children the great ceremony of _hakk'ni panki_, which
Mr. Borrow calls _hokkani boro_, but for which there is a far deeper
name,--that of _the great secret_,--which even my best friends among the
Romany tried to conceal from me. This feat is performed by inducing some
woman of largely magnified faith to believe that there is hidden in her
house a magic treasure, which can only be made to come to hand by
depositing in the cellar another treasure, to which it will come by
natural affinity and attraction. "For gold, as you sees, my deari, draws
gold, and so if you ties up all your money in a pocket-handkercher and
leaves it, you'll find it doubled. An' wasn't there the Squire's lady,
and didn't she draw two hundred old gold guineas out of the ground where
they'd laid in a old grave,--and only one guinea she gave me for all my
trouble; an' I hope you'll do better by the poor old gypsy, my deari ---
---."

The gold and all the spoons are tied up,--for, as the enchantress
observes, there may be silver too,--and she solemnly repeats over it
magical rhymes, while the children, standing around in awe, listen to
every word. It is a good subject for a picture. Sometimes the windows
are closed, and candles give the only light. The next day the gypsy
comes and sees how the charm is working. Could any one look under her
cloak he might find another bundle precisely resembling the one
containing the treasure. She looks at the precious deposit, repeats her
rhyme again, and departs, after carefully charging the housewife that the
bundle must not be touched or spoken of for three weeks. "Every word you
tell about it, my-deari will be a guinea gone away." Sometimes she
exacts an oath on the Bible that nothing shall be said.

Back to the farmer's wife never again. After three weeks another
Extraordinary instance of gross credulity appears in the country paper,
and is perhaps repeated in a colossal London daily, with a reference to
the absence of the school-master. There is wailing and shame in the
house,--perhaps great suffering, for it may be that the savings of years
have beer swept away. The charm has worked.

But the little sharp-eared children remember it and sing it, and the more
meaningless it is in their ears the more mysterious does it sound. And
they never talk about the bundle, which when