ned, I'm almost sure, and I
shall have to lie up presently in wet bandages. Tell me, are you really
pained that I have had the accident you prophesied?"

She glanced from her grandson to the telescope that pointed toward the
stars and back again.

"I am, indeed, sincerely grieved," the Prophet answered with genuine
emotion.

"Yes. But if I'd jumped out all right, and was sittin' here now in a
perfect condition of health, you'd have been sincerely grieved, too."

"I hope not, grannie," said the Prophet. But he looked meditative.

Mr. Ferdinand brought the toast and water, the sandwich and the fan.
When he had trodden across the carpet out of the room Mrs. Merillia
continued,--

"Hennessey, you see where this prophetic business is leadin' you. It has
made you charmed at my accident. Yes, it has."

She spoke without any pathos, humorously indeed, in a bright tone full
of common sense. And she nodded at him over her toast and water with a
chaffing, demure smile. But the Prophet winced and put his hand to his
thick brown hair.

"No, no," he cried quickly. "That's impossible. It can't be." But the
statements sounded like perturbed questions.

"Think!" said his grandmother, looking down at her poor, helpless foot
as it lay on the velvet stool. "If I hadn't had an accident to-night,
you'd have been obliged to think ill of--of--which of them was it that
had the impertinence to talk my affairs over with you?"

"Mercury and Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus," said the Prophet with
almost terrible gravity.

"Exactly. I always have thought ill of the last, but that's nothin' to
do with it. Weigh me in the balance against five planets--are they all
planets?--and how do the scales go? You see, Hennessey!"

The Prophet looked much distressed. He saw his beloved grandmother by
the fire and the bright stars twinkling through the frosty window-panes.
He thought of his telescope, of Sir Tiglath, of Mr. Malkiel, and of the
future, and the velvety blue walls of the drawing-room seemed to spin
round him.

"Prophecy," continued Mrs. Merillia, fanning herself till the lace
lappets of her priceless cap fluttered above her orderly and clasping
wig, "is dangerous, for often it can cause its own fulfilment. If
you hadn't said that because of a certain conjunction of planets--or
whatever it was--in my horoscope, I should have an accident to-night, I
shouldn't have jumped out of the brougham. I should have waited for Mr.
Ferdinand to