said Miss Greeby tartly. "Chaldea will make trouble."

"The child won't. I can manage her."

Miss Greeby hitched up her broad shoulders contemptuously. "She has
managed you just now."

"There are ways and ways, and when the hour arrives, the sun rises to
scatter the darkness," said Gentilla mystically. "Let the child win for
the moment, for my turn comes."

"Then you know something?"

"What I know mustn't be said till the hour strikes. But content
yourself, my Gorgious lady, with knowing that the child will make no
trouble."

"She has parted with the letter?"

"I know of that letter. Hearne showed it to me, and would make for the
big house, although I told him fair not to doubt his true wife."

"How did he get the letter?"

"That's tellings," said Mother Cockleshell with a wink of her lively
eye.

"I've a good mind to take you to the police, and then you'd be forced
to say what you know," said Miss Greeby crossly, for the vague hints
irritated her not a little.

The old woman cackled in evident enjoyment. "Do that, and the pot will
boil over, ma'am. I wish to help the angel rani who nursed me when I was
sick, and I have debts to pay to Chaldea. Both I do in my own witchly
way."

"You will help me to learn the truth?"

"Surely! Surely! my Gorgious one. And now," Mother Cockleshell gave a
tug at the donkey's mouth, "I goes my ways."

"But where can I find you again?"

"When the time comes the mouth will open, and them as thinks they're
high will find themselves in the dust. Aye, and maybe lower, if six feet
of good earth lies atop, and them burning in lime, uncoffined and
unblessed."

Miss Greeby was masculine and fearless, but there was something so weird
about this mystic sentence, which hinted at capital punishment, that she
shrank back nervously. Mother Cockleshell, delighted to see that she had
made an impression, climbed on to the gray donkey and made a progress
through the camp. Passing by Chaldea's caravan she spat on it and
muttered a word or so, which did not indicate that she wished a blessing
to rest on it. Chaldea did not show herself, so the deposed queen was
accompanied to the outskirts of the wood by the elder gypsies, mourning
loudly. But when they finally halted to see the last of Mother
Cockleshell, she raised her hand and spoke authoritatively.

"I go and I come, my children. Forget not, ye Romans, that I say so
much. When the seed needs rain it falls. Sarishan, brothers and sist