In time, the little girl became very intimate, and very partial to me. I
questioned her as to her birth, telling her what Melchior had stated;
for a long while she would not answer; the poor child had learned
caution even at that early age; but after we were more intimate, she
said, that which Melchior had stated was _not true_. She could recollect
very well living in a great house, with everything very fine about her;
but still it appeared as if it were a dream. She recollected two white
ponies--and a lady who was her mamma--and a mulberry-tree, where she
stained her frock; sometimes other things came to her memory, and then
she forgot them again. From this it was evident that she had been
stolen, and was probably of good parentage; certainly, if elegance and
symmetry of person and form, could prove blood, it never was more marked
than in this interesting child. Her abode with the gipsies, and their
peculiar mode of life and manners, had rendered her astonishingly
precocious in intellect; but of education she had none, except what was
instilled into her by Melchior, whom she always accompanied when he
assumed his character as a juggler. She then danced on the slack wire,
at the same time performing several feats in balancing, throwing of
oranges, &c. When Melchior was under other disguises, she remained in
the camp with Nattée.

Of Num, or Philotas, as Melchior thought proper to call him, I have
already spoken. He was a half-witted idiot, picked up in one of
Melchior's excursions, and as he stated to me, so did it prove to be the
fact, that when on the stage, and questioned as a fool, his natural
folly, and idiotical vacancy of countenance, were applauded by the
spectators as admirably assumed. Even at the alehouses and taverns where
we stopped, every one imagined that all his folly was pretence, and
looked upon him as a very clever fellow. There never was, perhaps, such