A lady who had been in a camp had nothing to say of them to me save that they were "dirty--dirty, and begged." But I ever think, when I see them, of Tieck's Elves, and of the Strange Valley, which was so grim and repulsive from without, but which, once entered, was the gay forecourt of goblin-land.
The very fact that they hide as much as they can of their Gipsy life and nature from the Gorgios would of itself indicate the depths of singularity concealed beneath their apparent life--and this reminds me of incidents in a Sunday which I once passed beneath a Gipsy roof.

I was, _en voyage_, at a little cathedral town, when learning that some Gipsies lived in a village eight miles distant, I hired a carriage and rode over to see them.

I found my way to a neat cottage, and on entering it discovered that I was truly enough among the Rommany.

By the fire sat a well-dressed young man; near him was a handsome, very dark young woman, and there presently entered a very old woman,--all gifted with the unmistakable and peculiar expression of real Gipsies.
The old woman overwhelmed me with compliments and greetings.

She is a local celebrity, and is constantly visited by the most respectable ladies and gentlemen.