ing clover, and
the twilight grew rosier brown. I never met Mat Woods again, though I
often heard of his fame as a fiddler. Whether my Anglo-Indian friend
found the fortune so vaguely predicted is to me as yet unknown. But I
believe that the prediction encouraged him. That there are evils in
palmistry, and sin in card-drawing, and iniquity in coffee-grounding, and
vice in all the planets, is established by statute, and yet withal I
incline to believe that the art of prediction cheers up many a despondent
soul, and does some little good, even as good ale, despite the wickedness
of drinking, makes some hearts merry and others stronger. If there are
foolish maids who have had their heads turned by being told of coming
noblemen and prospective swells, who loved the ground they trod on, and
were waiting to woo and win and wed, and if the same maidens herein
described have thereby, in the manner set forth, been led by the
aforesaid devices unto their great injury, as written in the above
indictment, it may also _per contra_ and on the other hand be pleaded
that divers girls, to wit, those who believe in prediction, have, by
encouragement and hope to them held out of legally marrying sundry young
men of good estate, been induced to behave better than they would
otherwise have done, and led by this hope have acted more morally than
was their wont, and thereby lifted themselves above the lowly state of
vulgarity, and even of vice, in which they would otherwise have groveled,
hoveled, or cottaged. And there have been men who, cherishing in their
hearts a prediction, or, what amounts to the same thing, a conviction, or
a set fancy, have persevered in hope until the hope was realized. You, O
Christian, who believe in a millennium, you, O Jew, who expect a Messiah,
and await the fulfillment of your _dukkerin_, are both in the right, for
both will come true when you _make_ them do so.

II. THE PIOUS WASHERWOMAN.

There is not much in life pleasanter than a long ramble on the road in
leaf-green, sun-gold summer. Then it is Nature's merry-time, when fowls
in woods them maken blithe, and the crow preaches from the fence to his
friends afield, and the honeysuckle winketh to the wild rose in the hedge
when she is wooed by the little buzzy bee. In such times it is good for
the heart to wander over the hills and far away, into haunts known of
old, where perhaps some semi-Saxon church nestles in a hollow behind a
hill, where