ry badly; it will be with you as it
is with all those who sit by a sick-bed and covet part of the
inheritance. Great people will help you in this work of wrongdoing.
Afterwards in the death agony you will repent. Two escaped convicts, a
short man with red hair and an old man with a bald head, will murder
you for the sake of the money you will be supposed to have in the
village whither you will retire with your second husband. Now, my
daughter, it is still open to you to choose your course."

The excitement which seemed to glow within, lighting up the bony
hollows about the eyes, was suddenly extinguished. As soon as the
horoscope was pronounced, Mme. Fontaine's face wore a dazed
expression; she looked exactly like a sleep-walker aroused from sleep,
gazed about her with an astonished air, recognized Mme. Cibot, and
seemed surprised by her terrified face.

"Well, child," she said, in a totally different voice, "are you
satisfied?"

Mme. Cibot stared stupidly at the sorceress, and could not answer.

"Ah! you would have the _grand jeu_; I have treated you as an old
acquaintance. I only want a hundred francs--"

"Cibot,--going to die?" gasped the portress.

"So I have been telling you very dreadful things, have I?" asked Mme.
Fontaine, with an extremely ingenuous air.

"Why, yes!" said La Cibot, taking a hundred francs from her pocket and
laying them down on the edge of the table. "Going to be murdered,
think of it--"

"Ah! there it is! You would have the _grand jeu_; but don't take on
so, all the folk that are murdered on the cards don't die."

"But is it possible, Ma'am Fontaine?"

"Oh, _I_ know nothing about it, my pretty dear! You would rap at the
door of the future; I pull the cord, and it came."

"_It_, what?" asked Mme. Cibot.

"Well, then, the Spirit!" cried the sorceress impatiently.

"Good-bye, Ma'am Fontaine," exclaimed the portress. "I did not know
what the _grand jeu_ was like. You have given me a good fright, that
you have."

"The mistress will not put herself in that state twice in a month,"
said the servant, as she went with La Cibot to the landing. "She would
do herself to death if she did, it tires her so. She will eat cutlets
now and sleep for three hours afterwards."

Out in the street La Cibot took counsel of herself as she went along,
and, after the manner of all who ask for advice of any sort or
description, she took the favorable part of the prediction and
rejected the rest. The ne