"Good gracious! what do you see?"
"Why, it's a most extraordinary thing! Your head line is that mixed up with your heart line, 'pon me word I can't tell which is which. Which is it, Meta? Do you choose your friends with your head entirely, or is it the other way with you, dear?"
"Oh, is that all? I thought you could tell fortunes really. I don't care what I am; I want to know what I'm going to do. Don't you see anything that's going to happen to me?"
"Lots of things. I see something that's going to happen to you right now. I wonder did it ever happen to you before?"
"What is it? When is it coming?"
"It has come. I will put it right here in your hand. But I shall want it back again, remember; and don't be giving it away, now, to anybody else."
A mysterious pause. Meta felt a breath upon her wrist, and a kiss from a mustached lip was pressed into the hollow of her hand.
"Keep that till I ask you for it," said Henniker quite sternly, and closed her hand tight with his own. The hand became an expressive little fist.
"I think you are just as mean and silly as you can be! I'll never believe a word you say again."
"Pussy," remarked Henniker, in a mournful aside, "go ask your mistress will she please forgive me. Tell her I'm not exactly sorry, but I couldn't help it. Faith, I couldn't."