ed to the mother of the girls. She was a neat,
pleasant-looking woman, of perhaps forty years, in appearance and manners
irresistibly reminding me of some respectable Cuban lady. Like the
others, she displayed an intelligent curiosity as to my knowledge of
Romany, and I was pleased at finding that she knew much more of the
language than her children did. Then there entered a young Russian
gentleman, but not "Prince Paul." He was, however, a very agreeable
person, as all Russians can be when so minded; and they are always so
minded when they gather, from information or conjecture, the fact that
the stranger whom they meet is one of education or position. This young
gentleman spoke French, and undertook the part of occasional translator.

I asked Liubasha if any of them understood fortune-telling.

"No; we have quite lost the art of _dorriki_. {61} None of us know
anything about it. But we hear that you Romanichals over the Black Water
understand it. Oh, _rya_," she cried, eagerly, "you know so
much,--you're such a deep Romany,--can't _you_ tell fortunes?"

"I should indeed know very little about Romany ways," I replied, gravely,
"if I could not _pen dorriki_. But I tell you beforehand, _terni pen_,
'_dorrikipen hi hokanipen_,' little sister, fortune-telling is deceiving.
Yet what the lines say I can read."

In an instant six as pretty little gypsy hands as I ever beheld were
thrust before me, and I heard as many cries of delight. "Tell _my_
fortune, _rya_! tell mine! and _mine_!" exclaimed the damsels, and I
complied. It was all very well to tell them there was nothing in it;
they knew a trick worth two of that. I perceived at once that the faith
which endures beyond its own knowledge was placed in all I said. In
England the gypsy woman, who at home ridicules her own fortune-telling
and her dupes, still puts faith in a _gusveri mush_, or some "wise man,"
who with crystal or magical apparatus professes occult knowledge; for she
thinks that her own false art is an imitation of a true one. It is
really amusing to see the reverence with which an old gypsy will look at
the awful hieroglyphics in Cornelius Agrippa's "Occult Philosophy," or,
better still, "Trithemius," and, as a gift, any ordinary fortune-telling
book is esteemed by them beyond rubies. It is true that they cannot read
it, but the precious volume is treasured like a fetich, and the owner is
happy in the thought of at least possessing darksome an