Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/83

Rh was in the slightest degree ghoulish, though caring little for his own life, the same aptitude for reading the hand at a glance. With many he would drop their hands at once and turn away, nor would anything induce him to speak a word about them. He spoke Romany like the gypsies themselves. Nor did we ever enter a gypsy camp without their claiming him. "What are you doing with that black coat on?" they would say. "Why don't you join us and be our king?" Moreover, Burton is one of the half-dozen distinctively Romany names; and though there is no proof whatever of his Arab or Romany descent, the idea that he had gypsy blood is not to be wondered at. He always took a great interest in gypsy lore, and prepared a book on the subject. He wrote many years later: "There is an important family of gypsies in foggy England, who in remote times developed our family name. I am yet on very friendly terms with several of these strange people; nay, a certain Hagar Burton, an old fortune-teller (divinatrice), took part in a period of my life which in no small degree contributed to determine its course."

My cousin asked Richard to write something for me at that time; he did so, and I used to wear it next my heart. One night an exception was made to our dull rule of life. My cousins gave a tea party and dance, and the "great majority" flocked in, and there was Richard like a star among rushlights! That was a night of nights; he waltzed with me once, and spoke to me several times, and I kept my sash where he put his arm round my waist to waltz, and