me witch-gathering, screamed objurgations at the pitch
of her crocked voice, and waved her skinny arms to emphasize her words,
in a most dramatic fashion.

"Oh, ye Romans," she screeched vehemently, "are ye not fools to be
gulled by a babe with her mother's milk--and curses that it fed
her--scarcely dry on her living lips? Who am I who speak, asses of the
common? Gentilla Stanley, whose father was Pharaoh before her, and who
can call up the ghosts of dead Egyptian kings, with a tent for a palace,
and a cudgel for a sceptre, and the wisdom of our people at the service
of all."

"Things have changed," cried out Chaldea with a mocking laugh. "For old
wisdom is dead leaves, and I am the tree which puts forth the green of
new truths to make the Gorgios take off their hats to the Romans."

"Oh, spawn of the old devil, but you lie. Truth is truth and changes
not. Can you read the hand? can you cheat the Gentile? do you know the
law of the Poknees, and can you diddle them as has money? Says you, 'I
can!' And in that you lie, like your mother before you. Bless your
wisdom"--Mother Cockleshell made an ironical curtsey. "Age must bow
before a brat."

"Beauty draws money to the Romans, and wheedles the Gorgios to part with
red gold. Wrinkles you have, mother, and weak wits to--"

"Weak wits, you drab? My weakest wits are your strongest. 'Wrinkles,'
says you in your cunning way, and flaunts your brazen smoothness. I spit
on you for a fool." The old woman suited her action to the word. "Every
wrinkle is the mark of lessons learned, and them is wisdom which the
Romans take from my mouth."

"Hear the witchly hag," cried Chaldea in her turn. "She and her musty
wisdom that puts the Romans under the feet of the Gentiles. Are not
three of our brothers in choky? have we not been turned off common and
out of field? Isn't the fire low and the pot empty, and every purse
without gold? Bad luck she has brought us," snarled the girl, pointing
an accusing finger. "And bad luck we Romans will have till she is turned
from the camp."

"Like a dog you would send me away," shrieked Mother Cockleshell,
glancing round and seeing that Chaldea's supporters outnumbered her own.
"But I'm dangerous, and go I shall as a queen should, at my own free
will. I cast a shoe amongst you,"--she flung one of her own, hastily
snatched off her foot--"and curses gather round it. Under its heels
shall you lie, ye Romans, till time again and time once more be
accom