Meantime, Betty decided that she would have her fortune told. Kathryn said that she would do it, too, and see what the other gypsy looked like.
The tent was a flimsy affair, as one put up in a drawing room would necessarily be. The fortune-teller was one of the older girls, who did it very cleverly. Her costume was not like Kathryn’s, but very gay with sashes and ribbons, beads and jewelry of all sorts. Her long earrings glittered and the wide gold bracelets that she wore jingled as they were struck by other loose narrow ones.
“I see that you will have to make a great choice,” she said to Betty, as Betty stretched forth her capable little hand and the gypsy pored over it, or looked at as much of Betty’s face as she could see.
“You have gifts. You might have a career. You are musical and there are some practical lines in your hand, too. Your life line is good—yes, I see a long life for you. You are rather creative.”
“What is the great choice?” asked Betty.
“Oh, yes. It’s the usual choice between marriage and a career.”
“Couldn’t I have both?”
“It doesn’t work,” laughed the gypsy, forgetting her pose. “I mean to say that you may have several serious love affairs and you may choose to marry. When you take your mirror tonight and your candle and look in the mirror, repeat this charm; for it will drive away the goblins and witches and other evil spirits and you may really see the one you are to love best!”
The gypsy handed Betty a piece of paper, cut from a gay Hallowe’en strip of some sort. It was folded and the gypsy warned her not to open it until just before she “performed the fatal rite.”
“It will lose its power if you do,” said she. “No, friend gypsy, let me see what the fates have for you. Oh, yes. That’s a nice hand, good lines, some mentality, not too much, some gifts; you will marry and there will be several, one, two, three children, a long life—but beware a dark woman who will try to come between you and the man you love!”