"I may be stupid, Miss Lucy, but I've never known a sign or omen fail. Didn't the cook at The Warren, miss, predict, with coffee grounds, that I should be engaged to a foreign gentleman, but that some one younger and more beautiful would prove a jealous rival? Here I am engaged, miss, or as good, to Mr. Capt; and I know what this omen means. You may laugh, miss, but it's a very serious thing."
"I shouldn't wonder at all, Hephzibah; the hotel prospectus says there are no less than fifty chambermaids here. Perhaps even fifty jealous rivals."
"Mr. Capt don't demean himself to chambermaids, Miss Lucy," retorted the abigail with angry scorn.
"Oh, I've no doubt Capt is ambitious; perhaps he looks higher. Perhaps I shall be your rival, Hephzibah."
"You wouldn't have the heart to do it, miss," said the girl in all seriousness.
Mrs. Haggard gave her cousin a reproving glance, but Lucy imperturbably continued:
"Well, Hephzibah," she said, "I think you may consider yourself safe from me, at least; but I'll help you if you'll let me."
Ladies don't wink, they only imperceptibly droop their eyelids, but the glance that Lucy gave her cousin was terribly like a wink, and brimming over with malice.
"Yes," she went on. "Light that candle, you stupid creature; now hold your thermometer close to the flame; we shall soon see what the omen is worth."
The maid did as she was bid, and carefully watched the tube.