"But we value your esteem," said Mr. Waife, with a smile that would have become a field-marshal. "And so, Merle, you think, if I am a broken-down vagrant, it must be put to the long account of the celestial bodies!"
"Not a doubt of it," returned the Cobbler, solemnly. "I wish you would give me date and place of Sophy's birth that's what I want; I'd take her horryscope. I'm sure she'd be lucky."
"I'd rather not, please," said Sophy, timidly.
"Rather not?—very odd. Why?"
"I don't want to know the future."
"That is odder and odder," quoth the Cobbler, staring; "I never heard a girl say that afore."
"Wait till she's older, Mr. Merle," said Waife: "girls don't want to know the future till they want to be married."
"Summat in that," said the Cobbler. He took up the crystal. "Have you looked into this ball, pretty one, as I bade ye?"
"Yes, two or three times."
"Ha! and what did you see?"