"No one but your majesty and myself."
"Have you done what I ordered you?"
"About the two black hens?"
"Yes!"
"They are ready, madame."
"Ah," muttered Catharine, "if you were a Jew!"
"Why a Jew, madame?"
"Because you could then read the precious treatises which the Hebrews have written about sacrifices. I have had one of them translated, and I found that the Hebrews did not look for omens in the heart or liver as the Romans did, but in the configuration of the brain, and in the shape of the letters traced there by the all-powerful hand of destiny."
"Yes, madame; so I have heard from an old rabbi."
"There are," said Catharine, "characters thus marked that reveal all the future. Only the Chaldean seers recommend"—