Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/59

Rh her sketch-book to the spot where "the pretty gentleman" and the fortune-teller were standing.

"I do so want to draw a real gipsy," she said. "I have never yet sketched one; and this is a good opportunity. These little brownies of children, with their Italian faces and hair, are very picturesque in their rags."

"Oh! do draw them!" said Verdant enthusiastically, as he perceived that the rest of the party had passed out of sight. "It is a capital opportunity, and I dare say they will have no objection to be sketched."

"May the heavens be the hardest bed you'll ever have to lie on my pretty rosebud," said the unpunctuating descendant of, as she addressed herself to Miss Patty; "and you're welcome to take the poor gipsy's pictur and to cross her hand with the shining silver while she reads the stars and picks you out a prince of a husband and twelve pretty bairns like the"



"No, no!" said Miss Patty, checking the gipsy in her bounteous promises. "I'll give you something for letting me sketch you, but I won't have my fortune told. I know it already; at least as much as I care to know." A speech which Mr. Verdant Green interpreted thus: Frederick Delaval has proosedproposed [sic], and has been accepted.

"Pray don't let me keep you from the rest of the party," said Miss Patty to our hero, while the gipsy shot out fragments of