fortune-tellers in England, when I heard this from her brother, himself
an ancient wanderer, who loves far better to hear the lark sing than the
mouse cheep when he wakes of a morning.

It was a very small but clean cottage, of the kind quite peculiar to the
English labourer, and therefore attractive to every one who has felt the
true spirit of the most original poetry and art which this country has
produced. For look high or low, dear reader, you will find that nothing
has ever been better done in England than the pictures of rural life, and
over nothing have its gifted minds cast a deeper charm.

There were the little rough porcelain figures of which the English
peasantry are so fond, and which, cheap as they are, indicate that the
taste of your friends Lady --- for Worcester "porcelain," or the Duchess
of --- for Majolica, has its roots among far humbler folk. In fact there
were perhaps twenty things which no English reader would have supposed
were peculiar, yet which were something more than peculiar to me. The
master of the house was an Anglo-Saxon--a Gorgio--and his wife, by some
magic or other, the oracle before-mentioned.

And I, answering said--

"So you all call it _patteran_?" {24}

"No; very few of us know that name. We do it without calling it
anything."

Then I took my stick and marked on the floor the following sign--

[Sign: ill24.jpg]