Though not legally their king, I assume that title over the few
encampments with which I am accustomed to travel; and you perceive
that I have given my simple name both to the jocular and kingly
dignity of which the old song will often remind you. My story is
done."

"Not quite," said his companion: "your wife? How came you by that
blessing?"

"Ah! thereby hangs a pretty and a love-sick tale, which would not
stand ill in an ancient ballad; but I will content myself with briefly
sketching it. Lucy is the daughter of a gentleman farmer: about four
years ago I fell in love with her. I wooed her clandestinely, and at
last I owned I was a gypsy: I did not add my birth nor fortune; no, I
was full of the romance of the Nut-brown Maid's lover, and attempted a
trial of woman's affection, which even in these days was not
disappointed. Still her father would not consent to our marriage,
till very luckily things went bad with him; corn, crops, cattle,--the
deuce was in them all; an execution was in his house, and a writ out
against his person. I settled these matters for him, and in return
received a father-in-law's blessing, and we are now the best friends
in the world. Poor Lucy is perfectly reconciled to her caravan and
her wandering husband, and has never, I believe, once repented the day
on which she became the gypsy's wife!"

"I thank you heartily for your history," said the youth, who had
listened very attentively to this detail; "and though my happiness and
pursuits are centred in that world which you despise, yet I confess
that I feel a sensation very like envy at your singular choice; and I
would not dare to ask of my heart whether that choice is not happier,