"She is a good looking girl, Beric," Aemilia said.
"Our host has two or three nieces down in the town," Beric replied; "I expect it is one of them. Yes, she is certainly pretty, and not so browned and sunburnt as most of these peasant girls are."
As they came close the girl stopped and looked at the house, and then, instead of going to the entrance, left her companion and walked across to the verandah. A smile came across her face.
"Shall I tell you your fortune?" she said abruptly to Aemilia.
"It is told," Aemilia said; "to be a farmer's wife. But what do you know of fortunes?"
"I can tell you the past if not the future," the young woman said, setting down her basket. "May I do so?"
"You are a strange girl," Aemilia said, "but tell me what you can."
"I can see an amphitheatre," the girl went on, "a great one, greater than that across at Messina, and it is crowded with people. In the front row there sits a man past middle age and a lady and a girl. In the centre of the arena is a young girl in white."
"Hush, hush!" Aemilia cried, leaping to her feet, "say no more. You know me, though how I cannot guess."
"I see another scene," the girl went on without heeding her; "it is a hut. It must belong to some savage people. It is quite unlike our cottages. There is an old woman there and a man and a young girl. The old woman does not speak to them; she does not seem of the same race; the other two are Romans. The mat at the door is pushed aside and there enters a tall youth. Not so tall as this man, not so strong; and yet like him, just as a boy might be to a man.