“come stain your cheeks with nut or berry,

 you’ll find a gipsy’s life is merry.”—gipsy glee.

i do not know what imp of mischief could have put such a fancy into the dreaming head of mrs. carnaby, except puck—but on a fine morning in august she awoke with a determination to get up a gipsy party, and have a day’s pleasure “under the green-wood tree.” she opened her mind therefore to mr. c——, as soon as he had opened his eyes, and before breakfast they had arranged the whole affair. hornsey wood was stale, and norwood was rejected, for the very paradoxical reason that it was such a haunt for gipsies; and mrs. carnaby meant to take even her youngest children. after a good deal of debating, hainault was the forest fixed upon;—it lay so handy to whitechapel, and the redletter day was marked to be the wednesday in the following week, because then master carnaby would only lose half a day’s schooling.

accordingly, on the wednesday, the dryads of wanstead were startled by the rumble of a well-laden tax-cart up that avenue which once led to a princely mansion; and the vehicle at last stopped, and set down its insides and outsides just where the lines of trees branch off into another verdant alley. “it was,” mrs. carnaby remarked, “a delicious green spot, and very handy to the green man for getting porter.” mrs. c—— was assisted out of the cart; and then miss c—— was lifted out by mr. hodges; and then the children were lifted out by the mother; and then the nursemaid, an awkward plainlooking girl that nobody helped, tumbled out. in the mean time, master c—— jumped out, all agog after blackberrying and birdnesting; and had swarmed half up a tree before his mother’s vigilance discovered, at a single glance, that he was tearing his trowsers,

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and had his best clothes on. this was a bad setting out for the boy; and the horse was not better, for directly he got out of harness, and felt himself free and at grass, after two or three preliminary kicks and plunges, it occurred to him to indulge in a roll, and so he rolled over a pigeon pie that was unfortunately unpacked, and finished by getting very much up with his fore-legs in a basket of ginger beer. but it was only a moment of enthusiasm; and, like other old nags, he betook himself to eating his green grass salad as gravely as a judge. none of the performers were fortunate in their debut. the first thing mrs. carnaby did in her hurry to save the pop, was to pop down one of the children on the basket of knives and forks; but it was a sharp child and soon got up again: and the first thing the other twin did was to trip over a stump, and fall, as betty nursemaid said, “with its face in a fuz.” the first thing mr. hodges did, was to take miss carnaby round the waist and give her a smacking kiss; in return for which, as her first act, she gave him a playful push, that sent him, with his white ducks, into a muddy miniature pond, that had recently been stirred up by a cow in search of a cold bath. the first thing that mr. c—— did was to recommend some brandy as a preventive against catching cold; but the last thing the brandy bottle had done had been to stay at home in the cupboard. mr. hodges, therefore, walked off to the green man for his health’s sake; and master carnaby sneaked off, nobody knew where, for the sake of blackberries;—while the nursemaid, for the sake of society, took a romantic walk with the two twins, and a strange footman. gipsies are a wandering race, and all the performers topped their parts; the very horse roamed away like a horse that had neither parish nor settlement: and mr. carnaby would have gone roaming after him, if his wife and daughter had not hung round his neck and made him swear not to leave ’em till the others returned, which was afterwards softened down to

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taking a little walk, provided he didn’t go out of sight and hearing. in the mean time mrs. and miss c—— laid the cloth, and began to review the eatables, not without lamenting over the smash of the pigeon pie; and when they came to plan their second course they found that the chief remove, a cold round of beef, had been pinned on the way down by a favourite bull-dog, that master carnaby had smuggled into the party. luckily for the dog, he had also gone roving, with the whole forest before him, as naturally as if he had belonged to bampfylde moore carew, the king of the gipsies.