my future. I shall never forget the strange, wild look of the
wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her
wicked old eyes on my young countenance. After this examination she
shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could get
them would be in English like these:

Fair lady cast a spell on thee,
Fair lady's hand shall set thee free.

Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose
palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response,
have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment.
The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subject
disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates
to it. I have never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I
should find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy. It
seems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some young
and fair woman, to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the
Providence that governs our destiny. With strange hopes, with trembling
fears, with mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have
sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the "elect lady," as I have
learned to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life.

Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I had
found the object of my superstitious belief.--Singularly enough it was
always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before my
bewildered vision. Once it was an English girl who was a fellow
passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages. I need not say that she
was beautiful, for she was my dream realized. I heard her singing, I saw
her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was
forgotten. The passengers were a social company enough, but I had kept
myself apart, as was my wont. At last the attraction became too strong
to resist any longer. "I will venture into the charmed circle if it
kills me," I said to my father. I did venture, and it did not kill me,
or I should not be telling this story. But there was a repetition of the
old experiences. I need not relate the series of alarming consequences
of my venture. The English girl was very lovely, and I have no doubt has
made some one supremely happy before this, but she was not the "elect
lady" of the prophecy and of my dreams.

A second time I thought myself for a moment in the p