regard to all superstitions, and I
was delighted to have this opportunity of discovering how far the magic
art had developed among the gipsies.

Talking as we went, we had reached the _neveria_, and seated ourselves
at a little table, lighted by a taper protected by a glass globe. I then
had time to take a leisurely view of my _gitana_, while several
worthy individuals, who were eating their ices, stared open-mouthed at
beholding me in such gay company.

I very much doubt whether Senorita Carmen was a pure-blooded gipsy. At
all events, she was infinitely prettier than any other woman of her race
I have ever seen. For a women to be beautiful, they say in Spain, she
must fulfil thirty _ifs_, or, if it please you better, you must be able
to define her appearance by ten adjectives, applicable to three portions
of her person.

For instance, three things about her must be black, her eyes, her
eyelashes, and her eyebrows. Three must be dainty, her fingers, her
lips, her hair, and so forth. For the rest of this inventory, see
Brantome. My gipsy girl could lay no claim to so many perfections. Her
skin, though perfectly smooth, was almost of a copper hue. Her eyes
were set obliquely in her head, but they were magnificent and large. Her
lips, a little full, but beautifully shaped, revealed a set of teeth as
white as newly skinned almonds. Her hair--a trifle coarse, perhaps--was
black, with blue lights on it like a raven's wing, long and glossy. Not
to weary my readers with too prolix a description, I will merely add,
that to every blemish she united some advantage, which was perhaps all
the more evident by contrast. There was something strange and wild about
her beauty. Her face astonished you, at first sight, but nobody could
forget it. Her eyes, especially, had an expression of mingled sensuality
and fierceness which I had never seen in any other human glance.
"Gipsy's eye, wolf's eye!" is a Spanish saying which denotes close
observation. If my readers have no time to go to the "Jardin des
Plantes" to study the wolf's expression, they will do well to watch the
ordinary cat when it is lying in wait for a sparrow.

It will be understood that I should have looked ridiculous if I had
proposed to have my fortune told in a _cafe_. I therefore begged the
pretty witch's leave to go home with her. She made no difficulties
about consenting, but she wanted to know what o'clock it was again, and
requested me to make my repeater strike o