mstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, and future events.

Her first experience, as a child, was being shut up in a darkened room,
and looking into a mirror, where figures and scenes appeared, like waking
dreams. She had been frightened, and screamed to be let out. Her mother
had taken pity and released her, saying that after all it was what "might
be expected from the seventh child of a seventh child, born on All
Saints' Eve."

The Nelson Smiths' guests listened breathlessly to every word, and were
enchanted when she promised to give each man and woman a short "sitting"
with her crystal after dinner.

Nothing was said about the purple room, so that the surprise could not
help being impressive.

It was a delightful dinner, well thought out between the host and
head-waiter, but no one wished to linger over it. Never had "bridge
fiends" been so eager to "get to work" as these people were to
take their turn with the Countess and her crystal. At Lady
Annesley-Seton's suggestion they drew lots for these turns, and
Constance herself drew the first chance. She and the gleaming figure
of the Countess went out together, and ten or twelve minutes later
she returned alone.

Everyone stared eagerly to see if she looked excited, and it took no
stretch of imagination to find her face flushed and her eyes dilated.

"Well? Has she told you anything wonderful?" A clamour of voices joined
in the question.

"Yes, she has," replied Constance. "She's simply _uncanny_! She could
pick up a fortune in London in one season, if she were a professional.
She has told me in what sort of place the heirlooms are now, but that we
shall never see them again."

So saying, Lady Annesley-Seton plumped down on a sofa beside her hostess,
as the next person hurried off to plunge into the mysteries. "I feel
quite weak in the knees," Constance whispered to Annesley. "Has she told
you anything?"

"No," said the girl "I don't--want to know things."

She might have added: "Things told by _her_." But she did not say this.

Constance shivered. "The woman frightened me with what she _knew_. I
mean, not about our robbery--that's a trifle--but about the past. That
crystal of hers seems to be--a sort of _Town Topics_. But I must say she
didn't foretell any horrors for the future--not for me personally. If
she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear
little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding