“Oh, Miss Gordon, we all want to hear your fortune,” cried several voices; and, in spite of her unwillingness, Honor soon found herself in Miss Paske’s clutches.
“Ahem! Artistic, yes. A dark hand; a little deceitful; not much heart; very ambitious. I see some disease, like small-pox, or a bad accident, in store for you; you will marry when you are about forty. Let me look again. No, you and your husband will not agree. You will live long, and die suddenly.”
“How I wish some one could tell Miss Paske’s fortune!” cried Captain Waring, with unusual animation. “Shall I try?” suddenly seizing it. “Great vivacity; despotic will; love of admiration; line of heart nil; and the girdle of Venus—oh—oh——”
“Oh, nonsense!”—wrenching it away impatiently. “Here is Mr. Joy, who knows something far more interesting—a new and much shorter way of going home.”
This was seemingly an important piece of intelligence. Yes, there was a decided alacrity about getting under way. Hunger is a vulgar, but a very human weakness, and soon every one set off in the wake of scatter-brained Toby and Miss Paske; and nothing but a few scraps of newspaper and cigar-ends marked the conclusion of what is known to this day in Shirani as the “Great Starvation Picnic.”
CHAPTER XXII.
TOBY JOY’S SHORT CUT.
Honor Gordon and Sir Gloster sent their ponies on ahead—as the path was all downhill—and elected to walk. To tell the truth, the gentleman was a nervous rider, and greatly preferred pedestrian exercise. It was an ominous fact, that whereas Sir Gloster had closely accompanied Miss Gordon and her escort on their way to the picnic—so much so, indeed, as to be almost always within earshot—he now brusquely shook off any of the party who evinced a desire to attach themselves to him and his companion.
“Miss Paske was most amusing as a fortune-teller and all that sort of thing,” he remarked, “but were you not rather uneasy about your future?”
“Not a bit”—contemptuously kicking a little cone downhill; “she made it up as she went along.”
“She was awfully down on young Jervis. What a career she painted for him, poor beggar!”