h silver; I
will ply my mystic trade and tell your future all for the sake of your
pretty eyes."

She peered, blinking with make-believe myopia, into the hollow of
Sally's hand.

"Ah, yes, yes!" she grunted, "you have an amiable and affectionate
disposition; you love pretty things to wear and every sort of
pleasure. There is your gravest fault and greatest danger,
pretty: love of clothes and pleasure and--forgive the wise old woman's
plain speaking--false ambitions. Beware of the sin of vain ambition;
only wrong and unhappiness can come of that. No, no; don't draw your
hand away. I have not finished. Let me look closer. There is much
written here that you should know and none but my wise old eyes can
read, pretty."

Effrontery battened on indulgence:

"The past has been unfortunate. The present is bright with misleading
glamour--beware of the vanities of the flesh! The future--I see a
shadow. It is dark. It is difficult to read. I see a journey before
you--a long journey; you will cross water and travel by the
steam-cars. And there is a lover waiting for you at the journey's
end--not here, but far away. I cannot see him clearly, but he waits.
Perhaps later, when I consult my magic sphere of crystal. But wait!"

She breathed hard for a moment, perhaps appreciating her temerity; but
she was as little capable of reading Sally's character as her palm.

"I see danger in your path," she resumed in accents of awe; "the
shadow of something evil--and a window barred with iron. I cannot say
what this means, but you should know. Look into your heart, my pretty;
think. If perhaps you have done something you should not have done,
and if you would not suffer shame for it, you must make all
haste to undo that which you have done--"

"Miss Pride!" Sally interrupted hotly, snatching her hand away.
"You--"

"No, no. I have no name!" the other protested in the falsetto she had
adopted to suit her impersonation; "I am only the wise old woman who
tells the future and the past and reads the secrets . . ."

But the white anger that glowed in Sally's countenance abashed her.
The shrill tones trailed off into a mumble. She looked uneasily aside.

"You must not be angry with the poor old wise woman," she stammered
uncertainly.

"You know very well what you have said," Sally told her in a low voice
vibrant with indignation. "You know very well you have deliberately
insulted me."

"No, no!"

"You know who I am and what your insi