The butler swooped solemnly down with the bottle, just as he would have done in the dining-room at The Maples.
It was fearfully and dreadfully unlike a picnic; but the high spirits of the two Penstone girls rose even above the overwhelming presence of the footmen and butler, and they were soon laughing and romping, and Olivia was smiling at them in sympathy, when suddenly, in the very middle of the informally formal repast, and just as Mr. Bartley Bradstone was mentally congratulating himself upon its complete success, a man and a woman, with a couple of children clinging to them, came through the opening of the trees. The woman stopped short, and, with the true gypsy whine, said, as she hungrily eyed the costly spread:
“Will the pretty ladies cross the poor gypsy’s hand with silver, and let her tell them their fortunes?”
Mr. Bradstone looked up, almost choking with rage. That gypsies should dare at any time to trespass upon his property was bad enough to bear, but that they should inflict their odious presence upon his special picnic party was simply unendurable.
“What do you mean?” he demanded, angrily. “Here! Go away! Go away at once!”
The woman shrank back a little; but the man, at the sound of his voice, gave a little start, and came a step nearer.
“We means no harm, gentleman,” he said, whiningly, his dark eyes fixed upon Bartley Bradstone’s angry face. “Let the wise woman tell the pretty ladies’ fortunes.”
Bartley Bradstone was about to send them about their business with the nearest approach to an oath he dared to utter in the presence of the ladies, when Mary Penstone, with a laugh, said:
“Oh, don’t send them away, Mr. Bradstone. I should like to have my fortune told, I should indeed.”
“It’s all nonsense,” he said, with ill-concealed impatience.