"But don't you know the decrees of fate are unalterable?" said the woman, solemnly.
"O, law, yes! but I didn't know an old cracked saucer was so formidable."
"It is no saucer, sir; it is a cup, and your destiny is in it."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other young man; "pretty well wound up, Hardin, if your destiny is contained in a teacup."
"Hush!" exclaimed the crone in an angry tone. "More than his or yours, you noisy chatterer! The whole world's, I may say, is in the cup."
"In the pot, you mean," said the youth, knocking with his bamboo stick on the side of a small, black teapot, that stood at the old woman's right hand.
"Well, yes; in the pot, I should say, perhaps," added she in a softened tone.
"The world's destiny is in a teapot, and Aunt Patty Belcher pours it forth at her pleasure; that's it;" and here they all joined in a hearty laugh.
"That will do," said Hardin at length; "now read off, good Dame Belcher. Sumpter is digesting his fortune. Give me a more palatable one than his."
The old woman rubbed her long, peaked nose violently, and then raising her eyes slowly to the young man's face, said, "Thou art ambitious, Lawrence Hardin!"