Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/725

 "Don't you see. She's telling my fortune."

"What has she told you."

"Nothing yet. She seems to be waiting for it to come to her."

The squaw looked at David cunningly, and David returned her gaze with ill-concealed disgust. "She'll have to wait a long time," he said to his wife. "She has been drinking."

He had lowered his voice, but the woman heard him. The other began to laugh, and said something in her own tongue to her mother. The latter still kept Emma's hand and remained silent.

"This your husband?" she said, at last, nodding at David. Emma nodded assent. The woman again examined her hand. "Within the year," she said, "you'll be a mother."

"That's wonderful news," said David. "Is it to be a boy or a girl?"

The woman looked hard at David. "A girl," she said. And then she transferred her eyes to Emma's palm.

"Well, is that all?" said Emma.

"She'll be sick."

"Very likely," said David. "And we'll send for the doctor."

"The doctor 'll do no good."

"Then we shall send for another," said Emma, laughing—but not without an effort.

"He'll do no good. She'll die."

The young squaw began to laugh again. Emma drew her hand away, and looked at her husband. He was a little pale, and Emma put her hand into his arm.

"We're very much obliged to you for the information," said David. "At what age is our little girl to die?"

"Oh, very young."

"How young?"

"Oh, very young." The old woman seemed indisposed to commit herself further, and David led his wife away.

"Well," said Emma, "she gave us a good dollar's worth."

"I think," said David, "she had been giving herself a good dollar's worth. She was full of liquor."

From this assurance Emma drew for twenty-four hours to come a good deal of comfort. As for David, in the course of an hour he had quite forgotten the prophecy.

The next day they went back to town. Emma found her house all that she had desired, and her lavender silk not a shade too pale, nor her train an inch too short. The winter came and went, and she was still a very happy woman. The spring arrived, the summer drew near, and her happiness increased. She became the mother of a little girl.

For some time after the child was born Emma was confined to her room. She used to sit with the infant on her lap, nursing her, counting her breathings, wondering whether she would be pretty. David was at his place of business, with his head full of figures. A dozen times Emma recurred to the old woman's prophecy, sometimes with a tremor, sometimes with indifference, sometimes almost with defiance. Then, she declared that it was silly to remember it. A tipsy old squaw—a likely providence for her precious child. She was, perhaps, dead herself by this time. Nevertheless, her prophecy was odd; she seemed so