"Then why do you sing the song?"

"I'll tell you, brother, we sings the song now and then to be a
warning to ourselves to have as little to do as possible in the way
of acquaintance with the gorgios; and a warning it is; you see how
the young woman in the song was driven out of her tent by her
mother, with all kind of disgrace and bad language; but you don't
know that she was afterwards buried alive by her cokos and pals, in
an uninhabited place; the song doesn't say it, but the story says
it, for there is a story about it, though, as I said before, it was
a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, wasn't true."

"But if such a thing were to happen at present, would the cokos and
pals bury the girl alive?"

"I can't say what they would do," said Ursula; "I suppose they are
not so strict as they were long ago; at any rate, she would be
driven from the tan, and avoided by all her family and relations as
a gorgio's acquaintance; so that, perhaps, at last, she would be
glad if they would bury her alive."

"Well, I can conceive that there would be an objection on the part
of the cokos and batus that a Romany chi should form an improper
acquaintance with a gorgio, but I should think that the batus and
cokos could hardly object to the chi's entering into the honourable
estate of wedlock with a gorgio."

Ursula was silent.