and approaching Losely, dropped a curtsey, and said, in a weird, under
voice: "Stranger! luck's in store for you. Tell your fortune!" As she
spoke, from some dust-hole in her garments she produced a pack of cards,
on whose half-obliterated faces seemed incrusted the dirt of ages.
Thrusting these antiquities under Jasper's nose, she added, "Wish and
cut."

"Yshaw," said Jasper, who, though sufficiently superstitious in some
matters and in regard to some persons, was not so completely under the
influence of that imaginative infirmity as to take the creature before
him for a sibyl. "Get away; you turn my stomach. Your cards smell; so do
you!"

"Forgive her, worthy sir," said the man, leaning forward. "The hag
may be unsavoury, but she is wise. The Three Sisters who accosted the
Scottish Thane, sir (Macbeth--you have seen it on the stage?) were not
savoury. Withered, and wild in their attire, sir, but they knew a thing
or two! She sees luck in your face. Cross her hand and give it vent!"

"Fiddledee," said the irreverent Losely. "Take her off, or I shall scald
her," and he seized the kettle.

The hag retreated grumbling; and Losely, soon despatching his meal,
placed his feet 'on the hobs, and began to meditate what course to adopt
for a temporary subsistence. He had broken into the last pound left
of the money which he had extracted from Mrs. Crane's purse some days
before. He recoiled with terror from the thought of returning to town
and placing himself at her mercy. Yet what option had he? While thus
musing, he turned impatiently round, and saw that the shabby man and the
dusty hag were engaged in an amicable game of ecarte, with those very
cards which had so offended his olfactory organs. At that sight the
old instinct of the gambler struggled back; and, raising himself up, he
looked over the cards of the players. The miserable wretches were, of
course, playing for nothing; and Losely saw at a glance that the man
was, nevertheless, trying to cheat the woman! Positively he took that
man into more respect; and that man, noticing the interest with which
Losely surveyed the game, looked up, and said:

"While the time, sir? What say you? A game or two? I can stake my
pistoles--that is, sir, so far as a fourpenny bit goes. If ignorant of
this French game, sir, cribbage or all fours?"

"No," said Losely, mournfully; "there is nothing to be got out of you;
otherwise"--he stopped and sighed. "But I have seen you under other