ing with
laughter and dropping into her chair as abruptly as she had quitted it
the moment before.

"Well?" queried Bell; and "Well?" though he did not give the query
words, looked the puzzled waiter.

"Oh! oh! oh! that is too good!" broke out the laughing girl. "Oh! oh!
oh! why don't you recognize him, Bell? That is Mr. Leslie!"

Whether Miss Joe had recognized him by the voice, the second time he
spoke, or whether something in the undisguiseable eyes (were her own the
keen eyes of love, already awakened, that saw more clearly than others
could do?) had betrayed him--certain it was that the masquerade was
over, so far as she was concerned, and our friend Tom Leslie stood fully
discovered. The waiter saw that his interference was no longer needed,
and moved away at once; and Bell Crawford, at length fully aware of the
trick, joined less noisily in the laugh which convulsed her friend.

"And what does the masquerade mean?" finally asked the soberer of the
two girls, as they were leaving the saloon,--while the other, who wished
to know much worse, was considerably more ashamed to ask.

"Humph!" answered Tom Leslie. "You have a right to ask, ladies, but if
you will excuse me I should prefer not to answer until the visit is
paid. You will remember that I told you I had a reason something like
your own for leaving the carriage; and if for the present you will
accept the explanation that I wish to test the accuracy of the
fortune-teller without her being at all indebted to any observation of
my face or any possible previous recollection of me, I shall be your
debtor to the extent of a full explanation afterwards, should you think
proper to demand it."

It is not impossible that Joe Harris, who had just been congratulating
herself upon a promenade with a man not only good-looking but
comparatively _young_, may have had her personal objections to the even
temporary substitution of sixty-five or seventy; but if so, her red lip
only pouted a little, and she said nothing more on the subject as the
three took their way up Broadway and down Prince Street to the place
where all the secrets of the past, present and future were to be
revealed.

CHAPTER XIV.

NECROMANCY IN A THUNDER-STORM--A VERY IMPROPER "JOINING OF HANDS"--BELL
CRAWFORD'S EYES, AND OTHER EYES--TWO PICTURES IN THE DUSSELDORF--A
THUNDER-CLAP AND A SHRIEK--THE RED WOMAN WITHOUT A MASK.

It was perhaps four o'clock in the afternoon when the trio of
for