"No."
"Etta?" "No." "Lucy?" "No." "Cora?" "No." At last, finding that
she would run through all the four-letter names in the language,
and that he must eventually say something, he agreed to let his
"true love's" name be Mary. Then she continued her remarks: "You
face up Mary, you love Mary; Mary is a good girl. You will marry
Mary at last; but Mary is not now here--Mary is far away; but do
not fear, for you shall have Mary."

Then she proposed to tell the name of our reporter in the same
mysterious manner, and on being told that it contains eight
letters, the first of which is "M," she turned to her register
and again began to read. It so happens that the proper names
answering to the description are very few, and the right one did
not happen to be on her list; so in a short time the greasy
prophetess became confused, and slipped off the track entirely,
and after asking about two hundred names of various dimensions,
from Mark to Melchisedek, she gave it up in despair and glared on
her twelve-shilling patron as if she thought he was trifling with
her, and she would like to eat him up alive for his presumption.

Then she suddenly changed her mode of operation and made the
fearful remark: "Now you may wish three wishes, and I will tell
whether you will get them or not."

She then laid out the cards into three piles, and her visitor
stated his wishes aloud, and received the gratifying information
in three instalments, that he would live to be rich, to marry the
light-haired maiden, and to effectually smash the dark-complexioned man.

Then she said: "You may now wish one wish in secret, and I will
tell you whether you will get it." Our avaricious hero instantly
wished for an enormous amount of ready money, which she kindly
promised, but which he has not yet seen the color of.

He asked about his prospective wives and children, with
unsatisfactory results. One wife and four children was, she said,
the outside limit. At this juncture she began to wriggle uneasily
in her chair, and her considerate patron respected her "rheumatics"
and took his leave. This conference, although the results may be
read by a glib-tongued person in five minutes, occupied more than
three-quarters of an hour--Madame Prewster's diction being slow
and ponderous in proportion to her size.

He now prepared to depart, and with a parting contortion of his
countenance, of terrible malignity, at the unfortunate baby,
which caused that weird brat to