uite understand.

In the living room by the fire Joan again grew witchy. She insisted upon
proving her cleverness at palm-reading. Raymond dared not refuse, but he
showed plain disapproval.

"It's rot!" Martin broke in, "but here goes, Joan!" And spread his
honest hand upon the altar.

Joan had a good field now for her wit, and she set the company in a
merry mood. When she touched upon Martin's nephew, which, of course, she
wickedly did, she made an impression.

"See here," Martin broke in, "this isn't palm-reading, you little
fraud--you're trying to be funny trading on what you've heard but
couldn't know for yourself."

"That's part of the trick, Uncle David. Now, Nan, dear, let me have that
small paw of yours."

Frankly Nancy extended the left hand upon which glittered Raymond's
diamond.

"The right one, too, Nan darling! What dear, soft, pink things!" Joan
bent and kissed them. "Such happy hands; good, true hands. Every
line--unbroken. Running from start to finish--as it should run."

"A stupid pair of hands, I call them." Nancy puckered her lips.

"They are blessed hands, Nan."

Raymond went behind Nancy's chair and fixed his eyes upon Joan--he was
almost pleading with her to have done with the dangerous play.

"Aunt Dorrie?" Joan turned to her, ignoring Raymond.

"My hands can tell you nothing, Joan, dear," Doris said; "I've been a
coward. See, my hands are flabby inside--the hands of a woman who has
had much too easy a time. 'Who has reached forth--but never grasped.'"

At this Martin came and stood over Doris. Joan looked up and suddenly
her eyes dimmed. She seemed alone. Alone among them all. There was no
one beside her--they seemed, Martin and Raymond, to be defending their
loved ones from her.

"And now, my brother Ken!" The words were like a call.

"Oh, let me off!" Raymond tried to speak lightly.

"No, indeed! The safety of my family is at stake!"

Raymond was inwardly angry, but he sat down and defiantly spread his
hands.

Joan regarded them silently for a dramatic moment, then she quietly
opened her own.

"Isn't this odd," she said, "there is a line in your hand and
mine--alike!"

Every eye was fixed on the four hands.

"Right here----" Joan traced it.

"What does it mean?" Martin asked.

"Capacity for friendship; that we are rather daring; not afraid of many
things--but canny enough to know----"

"What, Joan?--out with it!" It was Doris who spoke.

"Canny enough--to distr