“Come,” said Dick, to change the subject—“come, gipsy, tell my little cousin’s fortune here. Will she live to grow up and get married?”
The gipsy turned at his bidding and looked at Drusilla whose childlike face might have deceived eyes less keenly penetrating than those of the gipsy seeress.
“Cross the poor gipsy’s hand with a little, little bit of silver, sweet lady, and let her tell your fortune, my lady? The gipsy sees rare good luck in your pretty face, my lady!” said the woman, in a wheedling tone.
What young creature, unsatisfied and with a deep heart stake in life, is not in some degree a prey to superstition and credulity?—is not in secret a would-be diviner of dreams, interpreter of omens, consulter of the stars, reader of the future? The restless, longing, impatient heart cannot wait the slow revelations of time; it would, with rash hand, rend aside the veil and know the worst or best at once.
So it was with Drusilla now. She dropped a silver crown in the gipsy’s hand, and then, half in faith and half in scorn of that misplaced faith, she held out her palm.
The gipsy glanced slightly at the palm, but gazed earnestly in the face of the young matron.
“My lady, you have been a wife and you are a mother, you have had trouble—long trouble for so short a life, and a great trouble for so gentle a lady; but it is gone now, and it will never come back any more.”
“Thank Heaven for that,” murmured Drusilla.
“But you are not satisfied yet. There is something wanted, my lady. You have a hungry, hungry heart, and a begging eye. You are longing and famishing for something, my lady, and you will get it; for the hungry heart is a mighty heart, and must prevail; and the begging eye is a conquering eye that will overcome. Sweet, my lady, grief has gone away, never to come back to you; and joy will soon come, never to leave you.”
“Oh, if I were sure that were true. If I could only believe that!” exclaimed Drusilla, earnestly.