“But you cared then—enough to cross her hand with silver!” cried Mrs. Annandale. “And, George, your grandfather, Sir George, came riding by—I think that gray cob is a rather free goer for the old gentleman—and he reined up by the hedge and looked over. And he said, ‘Make it gold, young lady, if you want it rich and true. Buy your luck—that’s the way to get it!’”
Captain Howard stirred uneasily. “Sir George is right—the gypsy hussy is bought; she gives a shilling fortune for a shilling and a crown of luck for a crown. I have no faith in the practice.”
“You will when you hear this, dear Brother. Tell what the gypsy said, Arabella!” Mrs. Annandale leaned forward with her small mouth tightly closed and her small eyes twinkling with expectation.
“Oh, I have clean forgot,” declared Arabella, her eyes still on the coals and standing in the rich illumination of the flare.
“I have not forgot. I heard every word!” exclaimed the wily tactician.
Now Arabella lifted her long dark lashes, and it seemed to Raymond that she sent a glance of pleading expostulation, of sensitive appeal to meet the microscopic glitter in the pinched and wizened pale face. Mervyn waited in a quiver of expectation, of suspense; and Raymond, wounded, excluded, set at naught, as he had felt, was sensible of a quickening of his pulses. But why did the old woman persist?
“There is nothing in such prophecies,” said Captain Howard, uneasily.
“She said you had a lover over seas,—didn’t she, my own?”
The girl, looking again at the red fire, nodded her golden head casually, as if in renewing memory.
“One who loved you, and whom you loved!”