“I’ve been hearing wonderful things about that Clairvoyant. Do you really know what clairvoyance is? It isn’t mere fortune telling. Madge Hayne went the other day and she was told some really remarkable things. They had not heard from that brother in a year and didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. She said they would hear from him and that he would return soon with a fortune, and this very morning the letter came. He’s been in Alaska and British Columbia and goodness knows where all, and he’s tired of rambling and hardships. So he’s coming home as he has made his pile, which I suppose means a fortune. They are all just wild with joy, and there are to be two marriages this year.”
“Then Madge’s lover will get his promotion. That is what she is waiting for,” laughed Phil. “But I have heard that the woman told some wonderful things.”
“And while we were abroad in the summer Aunt Kate and I took little tours around; we were at a Fair in a small town where there were some real Romany gypsies and one insisted on reading Aunt Kate’s future. She spoke of mamma’s walking without crutches, which we couldn’t believe and said after we came home something mysterious would happen to us, that a member of the family would come from a great distance, that the person who had her in charge would die, but Aunt Kate laughed and said we had had no mysterious marriages nor sudden disappearances, so that could hardly come true.”
Phillipa had been considering. “Girls let’s go,” she exclaimed. “Mrs. Barrington didn’t actually forbid it. She said: ‘Girls I hope none of you will be foolish enough to spend your money on such nonsense. Those people are generally impostors.’ I’d like to have a peep into the future. There’s a young man I am interested in. Now, if he’s all fair and square and means business—”
“You’re always on the anxious seat of lovers,” said Louie, “and you seem to have them by dozens.”
“I want the very best and richest. Girls, my mother was married when she was seventeen, and I’ll be nineteen in June; but she didn’t go to boarding school for three years and waste her time.”
“And I want a tour abroad—a winter or summer in Paris—which is most attractive, and there may be a little chance of some one leaving father a fortune. Oh, let us go—just for the fun if nothing else,” and Louie glanced up in her radiant prettiness.
There is something tempting to the young in a peep in the wide mysterious future. Joys and the so-called good luck are delights to hope for and it is seldom that any dark pages are unfolded to youth. So the girls talked and agreed to go the next afternoon.
Examinations were in the morning and the girls had the afternoon to themselves. Four were going to a musicale, half a dozen to do some last shopping.
“We’ll put on something out of the ordinary line,” said Phil. “Hoods and veils and I’ll wear my old gray coat. Mother would make me bring it and I’ve not had it on once. We’ll trot across the park, shortest route, and hold our heads down.”