One evening, when she was dining with me, she proceeded to draw out her Ronald’s horoscope.
She was evidently extraordinarily well up in the subject.
“I will ask, Mrs. Cross,” she said at last, after much knitting of white brows, “but I should say Ronald was certainly not going to marry at all at this moment with Mercury and Jupiter in opposition. But then I said the same about myself, and about your going on a long journey. I should have thought some great change was inevitable with your sun now sesquiquadrate to Uranus in Cancer. But Mrs. Cross said I was absolutely mistaken about both. She was very emphatic.”
“You don’t mean to say you believe a single word of it,” I said, amazed.
“Oh, yes, Aunt Anne, of course I do. Why, don’t you remember you yourself advised me to study it. I’m sure it’s all true, only it’s difficult to disentangle.”
Jimmy came down next day, and a more crestfallen man I have never seen. I was dividing my white pinks, and he collapsed on a bench, and looked at me.
“You’ve given in about Mr. Wilson,” I said drily.
“I have. Gertrude came round to it quite suddenly last night.”
“Bear up,” I said “They will probably be very happy.”
“I don’t find I mind much now it’s decided on. And between ourselves Gertrude and Joan did not hit it off too well. I used to get a bit rattled between the two of them. It will be more peaceful when Joan is married.”