"What's the name for the leaf of a tree, brother?"

"I don't know," said I; "it's odd enough that I have asked that
question of a dozen Romany chals and chies, and they always told me
that they did not know."

"No more they did, brother; there's only one person in England that
knows, and that's myself--the name for a leaf is patteran. Now
there are two that knows it--the other is yourself."

"Dear me, Ursula, how very strange! I am much obliged to you. I
think I never saw you look so pretty as you do now; but who told
you?"

"My mother, Mrs. Herne, told it me one day, brother, when she was
in a good humour, which she very seldom was, as no one has a better
right to know than yourself, as she hated you mortally: it was one
day when you had been asking our company what was the word for a
leaf, and nobody could tell you, that she took me aside and told
me, for she was in a good humour, and triumphed in seeing you
balked. She told me the word for leaf was patteran, which our
people use now for trail, having forgotten the true meaning. She
said that the trail was called patteran, because the gypsies of old
were in the habit of making the marks with the leaves and branches
of trees, placed in a certain manner. She said that nobody knew it
but herself, who was one of the old sort, and begged me never to
tell the word to any one but him I should marry; and to be
particularly cautious never to let you know it, whom she hated.
Well, brother, perhaps I have done wrong to tell you; but, as I