The Squire also suffers the gang to lurk unmolested about the skirts of his estate, on condition that they do not come about the house.  The approaching wedding, however, has made a kind of Saturnalia at the Hall, and has caused a suspension of all sober rule.  It has produced a great sensation throughout the female part of the household; not a housemaid but dreams of wedding favours, and has a husband running in her head.  Such a time is a harvest for the gipsies:  there is a public footpath leading across one part of the park, by which they have free ingress, and they are continually hovering about the grounds, telling the servant-girls’ fortunes, or getting smuggled in to the young ladies.

I believe the Oxonian amuses himself very much by furnishing them with hints in private, and bewildering all the weak brains in the house with their wonderful revelations.  The general certainly was very much astonished by the communications made to him the other evening by the gipsy girl:  he kept a wary silence towards us on the subject, and affected to treat it lightly; but I have noticed that he has since redoubled his attentions to Lady Lillycraft and her dogs.

I have seen also Phoebe Wilkins, the housekeeper’s pretty and love-sick niece, holding a long conference with one of these old sibyls behind a large tree in the avenue, and often looking round to see that she was not observed.  I make no doubt that she was endeavouring to get some favourable augury about the result of her love-quarrel with young Ready-Money, as oracles have always been more consulted on love affairs than upon any thing else.  I fear, however, that in this instance the response was not so favourable as usual; for I perceived poor Phoebe returning pensively towards the house, her head hanging down, her hat in her hand, and the riband trailing along the ground.

At another time, as I turned a corner of a terrace, at the bottom of the garden, just by a clump of trees, and a large stone urn, I came upon a bevy of the young girls of the family, attended by this same Phoebe Wilkins.  I was at a loss to comprehend the meaning of their blushing and giggling, and their apparent agitation, until I saw the red cloak of a gipsy vanishing among the shrubbery.  A few moments after, I caught sight of Master Simon and the Oxonion stealing along one of the walks of the garden, chuckling and laughing at their successful waggery; having evidently put the gipsy up to the thing, and instructed her what to say.

After all, there is something strangely pleasing in these tamperings with the future, even where we are convinced of the fallacy of the prediction.  It is singular how willingly the mind will half deceive itself, and with what a degree of awe we will listen to these babblers about futurity.  For my part, I cannot feel angry with these poor vagabonds, that seek to deceive us into bright hopes and expectations.  I have always been something of a castle-builder, and have found my liveliest pleasures to arise from the illusions which fancy has cast over commonplace realities.  As I get on in life, I find it more difficult to deceive myself in this delightful manner; and I should be thankful to any prophet, however false, that would conjure the clouds which hang over futurity into palaces, and all its doubtful regions into fairy-land.