and counts.  She accepted, with that entire faith which characterised her, the stories of the exploits of Duke Michael, Duke Andreas, Duke Panuel, and the rest.  It only needed a hint from one of her continental friends, that her father, Panuel Lovell, was probably a descendant of Duke Panuel, for Sinfi to consider him a Duke.  From that moment she felt as strongly as any Gorgie ever felt the fine sentiment expressed in the phrase, noblesse oblige; and to hear her say, ’I’m a duke’s chavi [daughter], and mustn’t do so and so,’ was a delightful and refreshing experience to me.  Poor Panuel groaned under these honours, for Sinfi insisted now on his dressing in a brown velveteen coat, scarlet waistcoat with gold coins for buttons, and the high-crowned, ribbon-bedizened hat which prosperous Gypsies once used to wear.  She seemed to consider that her sister Videy (whose tastes were low for a Welsh Gypsy) did not belong to the high aristocracy, though born of the same father and mother.  Moreover, ‘dook’ in Romanes means spirit, ghost, and very likely Sinfi found some power of association in this fact; for Videy was a born sceptic.

One of the special charms of Gypsy life is that a man fully admitted into the Romany brotherhood can be on terms of close intimacy with a Gypsy girl without awaking the smallest suspicion of love-making or flirtation; at least it was so in my time.

Under my father’s will, a considerable legacy had come to me, and, after going to London to receive this, I made the circuit of the West of England with Sinfi’s people.  No sign whatever of Winifred did I find in any of the camps.  I was for returning to Wales, where my thoughts always were; but I could not expect Sinfi to leave her family, so I started thither alone, leaving my waggon in their charge.  Before I reached Wales, however, I met in the eastern part of Cheshire, not far from Moreton Hall, some English Lees, with whom I got into talk about the Hungarian musicians, who were here then on another flying visit to England.  Something that dropped from one of the Lees as to the traditions and superstitions of the Hungarian Gypsies with regard to people suffering from dementia set me thinking; and at last I came to the conclusion that if I really believed Winifred to have taken shelter among the Romanies, it would be absurd not to follow up a band like these Hungarians.  Accordingly I changed my course, and followed them up.  On coming upon them in a famous English camping-place I found the Lovells and the Boswells.  Rhona, dressed in gorgeous attire, evidently purchased at some second-hand shop, was rehearsing the shawl-dance for a great occasion at a neighbouring fair.  But no Winifred.