le form. I don't
believe she particularly counts the cost or the base material means by
which these things must be accomplished."

"Fancy!" sighed Kitty. "Oh, I do hope she will wear one of her stunning
gowns and some of those marvelous jewels they say she possesses, set in
the most wonderful, quaint ways, Horace Penfield says. But surely she
will."

"I think it likely," agreed Robert amiably.

"And is she very clever and interesting?" continued Kitty.

"She is herself," said Hayden. "I can not describe her any other way. She
may strike you as a bit staccato and stilted sometimes; but it is natural
to her. She is always herself."

There was a faint sound of a curtain before the door being pushed aside,
but this, Kitty and Hayden, absorbed in their conversation, had not
heard, and now, Mrs. Hampton turned with a stifled scream to see a
stranger, a Gipsy, standing almost at her elbow.

"Pretty lady!" The English was more deliciously broken than ever, and so
cajoling was the whisper that it would have coaxed the birds off the
trees and wheedled money from the stingiest pocket. "Pretty lady, let me
tell your fortune. Cross my palm with silver. 'Tis the seventh daughter
of a seventh daughter who asks you."

Kitty looked from the Gipsy to Robert in bewilderment. This was not the
dazzling figure in gauzes and satins and jewels she had expected, a
capricious lady of a foreign and Southern nobility, whose whimsical and
erratic fancy was occasionally amused by a change of role. This was a
daughter of the long, brown path, who afoot and light-hearted took
naturally to the open road, with the tanned cheek, white teeth, and merry
eyes of her kind.

And yet, if not the glittering vision Kitty had anticipated, Ydo was a
sufficiently vivid and picturesque figure. Her short corduroy skirt had
faded with wear and washing to a pale fawn-tint with a velvety bloom upon
it; her brown boots were high and laced, her blue blouse had faded like
her skirt to a soft and lovely hue. A red sash confined her waist, a
handkerchief of the same color was knotted loosely about her throat,
while a yellow scarf was tied about her head and fell in long ends down
her back.

Kitty immediately recovered from the shock she had experienced at the
unheralded advent of the strange visitor and endeavored to make up in
warmth of greeting for the surprise she had shown.

"Forgive me, instead," said Ydo, with charming penitence. "But I was the
Gipsy to-ni