really thought anything so perfectly absurd?"

"I only hope we won't find out that he was serious, Dolly. You couldn't
be expected to understand, but people like that are very different from
ourselves. They haven't got a lot of civilized ideas to hold them in
check, the way we have, and when they want something they come right out
and say so, and if they can't get what they want by asking for it,
they're apt to take it."

"But I didn't think anyone ever acted like that! And he is going to
marry that pretty gypsy girl who is putting the beads and buttons on a
jacket for him, anyhow. She said so; she said they were engaged."

"Men have changed their minds about the women they were going to marry,
Dolly, even American men. And that's another thing that bothers me. I
think that girl's very much in love with him, and if she thought he was
fond of you, she'd be furious. There's no telling what a gypsy girl
might do if she was jealous. You see, she'd blame you, instead of him.
She'd say you had turned his head."

"Oh, Bessie, what a dreadful mess. Oh, dear! I seem to be getting into
trouble all the time! I think I'm just going to have a little harmless
fun, and then I find that I've started all sorts of trouble that I
couldn't foresee at all."

"Never mind, Dolly. You didn't mean to do it, and, of course, I may be
exaggerating it anyhow. I'll admit I'm frightened, but it's of what I
know about the gypsies. They're strange people and they carry a grudge a
long time. If they think anyone has hurt them, or offended them, they're
never satisfied until they have had their revenge. But, after all, he