"Stop! Is your hand clean? It looks very black!"
"Cleaner than yours will be when it is stained with blood, young maiden!"
"Tut! If you insist on telling my fortune, tell me a pleasant one, and I will pay you double," laughed Capitola.
"The fates are not to be mocked. Your destiny will be that which the stars decree. To prove to you that I know this, I tell you that you are not what you have been!"
"You've hit it this time, old lady, for I was a baby once and now I am a young girl!" said Cap, laughing.
"You will not continue to be that which you are now!" pursued the hag, still attentively reading the lines of her subject's hand.
"Right again; for if I live long enough I shall be an old woman."
"You bear a name that you will not bear long!"
"I think that quite a safe prophecy, as I haven't the most distant idea of being an old maid!"
"This little hand of yours—this dainty woman's hand—will be—red with blood!"