"Won't you tell mine?" Hester asked. "I've got a sixpence."
"Just cross my hand with it," said the woman, "but don't give it to me. I couldn't take money from any of you."
So Hester, with her heart beating very fast, crossed the gipsy's hand with the sixpence, and the gipsy held both hers and peered at them very hard while Janet nursed the baby.
"This," said the gipsy at last, "is a very remarkable hand. I see stories and people reading them. I see a dark gentleman and a gentleman of middling colour."
"Yes," said Hester. "Can't you tell me anything more about them?"
"Well," said the gipsy, "I can't, because they are only little boys just now. But I see a beautiful wedding. White satin. Flowers. Bridesmaids."
The gipsy stopped, and Hester drew her hand back. It was terribly romantic and exciting.
Before the woman said good night and went to her caravan, Hester took her sixpence to Kink and asked him to bore a hole in it. And then she threaded it on a piece of string and tied it round the baby's neck.
The gipsy woman was very grateful. "A beautiful wedding," she said again. "Such flowers! Music, too."
"Wasn't it wonderful?" Hester said to Janet before they went to sleep.