“Oh, as fit as anything,” smiled Ruth, though she still looked a little pale. “I have just written a long letter to father, to assure him that I shall be well enough to play in the tournament next week.”
“That is fine,” declared Mrs. Cartwright. “And you, Bab?”
“There never was much the matter with me,” Bab answered.
“Then you are just the girls I am looking for,” said Mrs. Cartwright, clapping her hands. “You know, I asked you, Bab, to play gypsy fortune-teller at my bazaar; now I want to ask Ruth to join you. Everyone thinks you are both laid up from your accident, and no one will suspect who you are. The plans for the bazaar are going splendidly. I think I shall make lots of money for my poor sailors. I shall have it as simple and attractive as I can—a real country fair, with booths and lemonade stands. I am going to give these jaded Newport people a taste of the simple life. Do say you will help me.”
Both girls shook their heads. “We do not know how to tell fortunes,” they protested.
“Oh, it’s only fun,” argued Mrs. Cartwright. “You can make up any foolishness you like as you go along. I’ll show you how to run the cards, as they call it. Has either of you ever seen anyone do it?”
Bab confessed she had watched “Granny Ann.” Suddenly she left her chair, and came hobbling over to Mrs. Cartwright, saying, in Granny Ann’s own high-pitched, whining voice: “Lovely lady, would you know the future, grave or gay, cross my hand with a silver piece and list to what I say.”
Gravely, Mrs. Cartwright extracted a dollar from her silver purse, and made the gypsy sign on Bab’s outstretched hand. Barbara immediately told her such a nonsensical fortune, in a perfectly grave voice, that she and Ruth both screamed with laughter.
“You’ll do, Bab,” said Mrs. Cartwright. “Won’t you join her, Ruth?”
“Well,” said Ruth, “I never desert Mrs. Micawber these days, or, to put it plainly, Miss Bab Thurston. So I’m game.”