Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/61

Rh "You had better let her tell you your fortune," said the young lady; "perhaps it may be an improvement on what you expected. And I shall be able to make a better sketch of her in her true character of a fortune-teller."



Then, like as Martivalle inspected 's palm, according to the form of the mystic arts which he practised, so the swarthy prophetess opened her Book of Fate, and favoured Mr. Verdant Green with choice extracts from its contents. First, she told the pretty gentleman a long rigmarole about the stars, and a planet that ought to have shone upon him, but didn't. Then she discoursed of a beautiful young lady, with a heart as full of love as a pomegranate was full of seeds,—painting, in pretty exact colours, a lively portraiture of Miss Patty, which was no very difficult task, while the fair original was close at hand; nevertheless, the infatuated pretty gentleman was deeply impressed with the gipsy narrative, and began to think that the practice and knowledge of the occult sciences may, after all, have been handed down to the modern representatives of the ancient Egyptians. He was still further impressed with this belief when the gipsy proceeded to tell him that he was passionately attached to the pomegranate-hearted young lady, but that his path of true love was crossed by a rival—a dark man.