However, the story of the Huguenot immigration into England is clearly bound up with Norwich and the adjacent district.

And so we may well take the name of 'Perfrement' as conclusive evidence of a French origin, and reject as utterly untenable the not unnatural suggestion of Nathaniel Hawthorne, that Borrow's mother was 'of gypsy descent.'[9] She was one of the eight children of Samuel and Mary Perfrement, all of whom seem to have devoted their lives to East Anglia.[10] We owe to Dr.Knapp's edition of _Lavengro_ one exquisite glimpse of Ann's girlhood that is not in any other issue of the book.

Ann's elder sister, curious to know if she was ever to be married, falls in with the current superstition that she must wash her linen and 'watch' it drying before the fire between eleven and twelve at night.

Ann Perfrement was ten years old at the time.

The two girls walked over to East Dereham, purchased the necessary garment, washed it in the pool near the house that may still be seen, and watched and watched.