y commonest of that nonsense which is revealed
in all lowly fortunes. You are, as usual, the victim of cold and hunger,
suffering from destitution and want. Then there are indications of a
bold spirit, ambitious and energetic, bursting out through all the gloom
of your dark condition, and a small whispered word in your ear, tells
you to hope!" While the Chevalier rattled out this "rodomontade" at a
much greater length than I have time or patience to repeat, his eyes
never quitted me, but seemed to sparkle with a fiend-like intelligence
of what was passing within me. As he concluded, he mixed up the cards
together, merely muttering, half aloud, "adventures and escapes by land
and sea. Abundance of hard luck, to be all compensated for one day, when
wealth in all its richest profusion is showered upon you." Then, dashing
the cards from him in affected anger, he said, "It is enough to make men
despise themselves, the way in which they yield credence to such rank
tomfoolery! but I assure you, Count, however contemptible the oracle has
shown herself to-day, I have on more than one occasion been present at
the most startling revelations,--not alone as regarded the past, but the
future also."

"I can easily believe it, Chevalier," replied I, with a great effort to
seem philosophically calm. "One must not reject everything that has not
the stamp of reason upon it; and even what I have listened to to-day,
absurd as it is, has not shaken my faith in the divination of the cards.
Perhaps this fancy of mine is the remnant of a childish superstition,
which I owe in great part to my old nurse. She was a Moor by birth, and
imbued with all the traditions and superstitions of her own romantic
land."

There was a most sneering expression on the Chevalier's face as I
uttered these words. I paid no attention to it, however, but went on:
"From the venerable dame I myself attained to some knowledge of 'destiny
reading,' of which I remember once or twice in life to have afforded
very singular proofs. _My_ skill, however, usually preferred unravelling
the 'future' to the 'present.'"

"Speculation is always easier than recital," said the Chevalier, dryly.

"Very true," said I; "and in reading the past I have ever found how want
of sufficient skill has prevented my giving to the great fact of a
story the due and necessary connection; so that, indeed, I appear as if
distinct events alone were revealed to me, without clew to what preceded
or fol