“All what you say may be very true, Ursula, but you admit that there are half-and-halfs.”

“The more’s the pity, brother.”

“Pity or not, you admit the fact; but how do you account for it?”

“How do I account for it? why, I will tell you, by the break up of a Roman family, brother,—­the father of a small family dies, and perhaps the mother; and the poor children are left behind; sometimes they are gathered up by their relations, and sometimes, if they have none, by charitable Romans, who bring them up in the observance of gypsy law; but sometimes they are not so lucky, and falls into the company of gorgios, trampers, and basket-makers, who live in caravans, with whom they take up, and so . . .  I hate to talk of the matter, brother; but so comes this race of the half-and-halfs.”

“Then you mean to say, Ursula, that no Romany chi, unless compelled by hard necessity, would have anything to do with a gorgio.”

“We are not over fond of gorgios, brother, and we hates basket-makers and folks that live in caravans.”

“Well,” said I, “suppose a gorgio, who is not a basket-maker, a fine handsome gorgious gentleman, who lives in a fine house . . .”

“We are not fond of houses, brother.  I never slept in a house in my life.”

“But would not plenty of money induce you?”

“I hate houses, brother, and those who live in them.”

“Well, suppose such a person were willing to resign his fine house, and, for love of you, to adopt gypsy law, speak Romany, and live in a tan, {305} would you have nothing to say to him?”

“Bringing plenty of money with him, brother?”

“Well, bringing plenty of money with him, Ursula.”

“Well, brother, suppose you produce your man; where is he?”

“I was merely supposing such a person, Ursula.”

“Then you don’t know of such a person, brother?”

“Why, no, Ursula; why do you ask?”

“Because, brother, I was almost beginning to think that you meant yourself.”

“Myself, Ursula!  I have no fine house to resign; nor have I money.  Moreover, Ursula, though I have a great regard for you, and though I consider you very handsome, quite as handsome, indeed, as Meridiana in . . .”

“Meridiana! where did you meet with her?” said Ursula, with a toss of her head.

“Why, in old Pulci’s . . .”

“At old Fulcher’s! that’s not true brother.  Meridiana is a Borzlam, and travels with her own people, and not with old Fulcher, {306} who is a gorgio and a basket-maker.”

“I was not speaking of old Fulcher, but Pulci, a great Italian writer, who lived many hundred years ago, and who, in his poem called the ‘Morgante Maggiore,’ speaks of Meridiana, the daughter of . . .”

“Old Carus Borzlam,” said Ursula; “but if the fellow you mention lived so many hundred years ago, how, in the name of wonder, could he know anything of Meridiana?”