"Thank you," said Cora, but, of course, she had no way of knowing how this girl had tried to befriend her in the gypsy wagon.

"We have some splendid berries. I picked them before the sun touched them," said Lena. "And fresh milk; also toast, and what else?"

"We will leave it to you, Lena. I know Sam went to market."

"Yes, and will the young lady like some of your robes? I thought that dress might not suit for daylight."

Cora was still wearing her handsome yellow gown that she had worn at the Tip-Top ball. It did look strange in the bright, early morning sunshine.

"Would you?" asked Helka of Cora. "I have a good bathroom, and there is plenty of water." She smiled and showed that wonderful set of teeth. Cora thought she had never before seen such human pearls.

"It is very kind of you," and Cora sighed. "If I must stay I suppose I may as well be practical about it."

"Oh, yes," Lena ventured. "They all like you, and it will be so much better not to give any trouble."

"You see, Lena knows," said the queen. "Yes, Lena, get out something pretty, and Miss----"

"Cora," supplied the prisoner.

"Cora? What an odd name! But it suits you. There is so much coral in your cheeks. Yes, Miss Cora must wear my English robe--the one with the silver crown."

To dress in the robes of a gypsy queen! If only this were a play, and not so tragically real!

But the thought was not comforting. It meant imprisonment. Cora had determined to be brave, but it was hard. Yet she must hope that something unexpected would happen to rescue her.

"Lena is my maid," explained Helka. "I tell her more than any of the others. And she fetches my letters secretly. Have you not one for me today, Lena?"

The girl slipped her hand in her blouse and produced a paper. The queen grasped it eagerly. "Oh, yes," she said, "I knew he would write.

Good David!" and she tore open the envelope. Cora watched her face and guessed that the missive was from the lover. Lena went out to bring the breakfast things.

"If only I could go out and meet him!" said the queen, finishing the letter. "I would run away and marry him. He has been so good to wait so long. Just think! He has followed me from England!"

"And you never meet him?"

"Not since they suspect. It was then they bought the two fierce dogs.

I would never dare pa.s.s them. Sometimes they ask me to take a ride in the big wagon, but I never could ride in that. You see, I am not all a gypsy. My father was a sort of Polish n.o.bleman and my mother was part English. She became interested in the great question of the poor, and so left society for this--the free life. My father was also a reformer, and they were married twice--to make sure. It is my father's money that keeps me like this, and, of course, the tribe does not want to lose me."

"And this man David?"

"I met him when I rode like a queen in an open chariot in a procession.

That is, he saw me, and, like the queens in the old stories, he managed to get a note to me. Then I had him come to the park we were quartered in. And since then--but it does seem so long!"

"Could not Lena take a letter for me?" asked Cora timidly.

"Oh, no! They would punish her very severely if she interfered in your case. You see, Salvo must be avenged and released from jail. I always hated Salvo!"

Cora was silent. Presently the girl returned and placed the linen tablecloth on the floor. Following her came the other girl, with a tray of things. It was strange to see them set the table on the floor, but Cora remembered that this was a custom of the wanderers. When the breakfast had been arranged, the queen slipped down beside her coffee like a creature devoid of bones.

She was very graceful and agile--like some animal of the forest. Cora took her place, with limbs crossed, and felt like a Turk. But the repast was not uninviting. The berries were fresh, and the milk was in a clean bowl; in fact, everything showed that the queen's money had bought the service.

They talked and ate. Helka was very gay, the letter must have contained cheering news, and Cora was reminded how much she would have loved to have had a single word from one of her dear ones. But she must hope and wait.

"Do take some water cress," pressed the strange hostess, possibly noting that Cora ate little. "I think this cress in America is one of your real luxuries. We have never before camped at a place where it could be gathered fresh from the spring." Daintily she laid some on the green salad on a thin slice of the fresh bread, and after offering the salt and pepper, placed the really "civilized" sandwich on the small plate beside Cora. "There is just one thing I should love to go into the world for," said the queen. "I would love to have my meals at a hotel. I am savagely fond of eating."

"We had such a splendid hotel," answered Cora with a sigh. "It seems a mockery that I cannot invite you there with me--that even I cannot go myself. I keep turning the matter over and over in my mind, and the more I think the more impossible it all seems."

"Nothing is impossible in Gypsy land," replied the queen, helping herself to some berries. "And it may even not be impossible to do as you suggest. But we must wait," and she smiled prettily. "You have a very great habit of haste; feverish haste, the books call it. I believe it is worse for one's complexion than are cigarettes. Let me begin making a Gypsy of you by teaching you to wait. You have a great deal to wait for."

Cora glanced around her to avoid the eyes of the speaker. Surely she did have a great deal to wait for. "Do you stay in doors all the time?" she asked, glad to think of some leading question. "I should think that would hurt your complexion."

"We often walk in the grounds. You see, we own almost all the woods, but I am afraid they will not trust you yet. You will have to promise me that you will not try to escape if I ask that you be allowed to walk with me soon," said Helka.

"I could not promise that," Cora replied sadly.

"Oh, I suppose not now. I will not ask you. We will just be good friends. And I will tell you about David. It is delightful to have some one whom I can trust to tell about him."

"And I will tell you about my friends! Perhaps I will not be so lonely if I talk of them."

Cora was now strong enough in nerve and will to observe her surroundings. The room was very large, and was undoubtedly used formerly as a billiard parlor, for it was situated in the top of the big house, and on all sides were windows, even a colored gla.s.s skylight in the roof. The floors were of hardwood and covered partially with foreign rugs. There were low divans, but no tables nor chairs. The whole scene was akin to that described as oriental. Lena returned with the robes for Cora, and laid them on a divan. Then she adjusted a screen, thus forming a dressing room in one corner. This corner was hung with an oblong mirror, framed in wonderful ebony. Helka saw that this attracted Cora's attention.

"You are wondering about my gla.s.s? It was a gift from my father to my mother, and is all I have left of her beautiful things. It has been very difficult to carry that about the world."

"It is very handsome and very ma.s.sive," remarked Cora.

"Yes, I love black things; I like ebony. They called my mother Bonnie, for she had ebony eyes and hair."

"So have you," said Cora.

"I am glad you are dark; it will make it easier, and the tribe will think you are safer. I really would like to get you back to your friends, but then I should lose you. And I don't see, either, how it ever could be managed unless they want to let you go."

Cora sighed heavily. Then she prepared to don the garb of the gypsy queen!

CHAPTER XXI

MOTHER HULL

"Mother Hull wants to talk with you, Helka."

"She must send her message by you," said Helka to Lena. "I never get along with Mother Hull."

Cora gasped, and then sighed the sigh of relief. Would that dreadful old woman enter the room and perhaps insult her?

"She is very--cross," ventured Lena.

"No more so than I am. Tell her to send her message."