Meg bent her head, and just put her lips to the fresh dew-washed flower, then started violently, for a harsh laugh greeted her childish action.
"Why, my pretty lady; you ought to have something better worth the kissing!" cried some one.
Meg stood erect, both offended and frightened, but much too proud to run away.
"What are you?" she said. And then a thrill of recollection came to her; the voice was the voice of the hungry tramp who had begged from her on the Dover beach. The woman scrambled up from the deep shadow of the hedge under which she had spent the night, and stepped into the road.
There was something gipsy-like about her bearing, and her cold eyes scanned the young lady sharply.
"There's no mistaking the nest you come from, my pretty," said she. "You've your father—and a handsome gentleman he is too—written all over you. You've got his smile too," as Meg's mobile face involuntarily brightened at the compliment. "Sweet as sugar-sticks, and proud as the devil. Hold out your hand, my lady, and let the gipsy read your life for you. Why, you ain't scared, are you?"
Meg hesitated a second, then stretched out her hand over the gate. The woman was dirty, and too free in her speech to please the little lady, who was used to being treated to low curtsies and deepest respect by her father's tenants; but then there was a taste of excitement about the fortune-telling, and Meg was half superstitious and half amused.
Her hand looked very white and delicate in the tramp's grimy fingers. The woman glanced from it to the girl's fair face, and began to prophesy with an earnestness and apparent belief in her own words, which were perhaps not wholly simulated. The blue veins stood out too clearly, and the lines on Meg's palm were deeply cut.
"You've more than one lover already," said the prophetess. "But your heart's not touched yet. There's a dark man who is set on having you, but you'll only bring him ill-luck. There's a woman who hates you because she's jealous. Take care, or she'll do you a mischief. There's a great change coming in your life soon—and——" But Meg snatched her hand away and stood ashamed. The preacher of the beach was coming up the hill.
She stepped back into the shadow in order that he might go by without seeing her: she did not care to be caught having her fortune told like a silly servant girl. She knew of no reason in the world why he should stop at the Ravenshill gate; and yet an absolute certainty that he would so stop, and that he would speak to her, came over her. Perhaps it was because he was walking with an evident purpose, looking neither to the right nor left; but she was hardly surprised, only slightly dismayed, as at a fulfilled presentiment, when the man turned as she expected, and came straight towards her.