"Who tells fortunes on this fairy island? won't you tell me, little one?" Mrs. St. James touches the child's dark curly head caressingly.
"Molly will; but you have to give her gold, or she won't." This information was supplied by one of the other children.
"What a joke if we could find some one who could tell us," Rea Severn cries.
Jerry Hopkins shows the girl a bright silver dollar, and says if she will show them where "Molly" is to be found she may consider herself the happy possessor of the aforesaid dollar.
"Certainly, I will take you to Molly's tent, but mamma never allows us to take money from strangers," the tiny maiden replies, as she sat down in the sand to put on her stockings and slippers. Then she led the way to the Gipsy's camp. Jerry Hopkins put the rejected offering in his pocket, thinking that some children are wiser than people twice their age.
"Here's her tent, and there's Molly. See Molly," she cries, "I brought you some people that want you to tell them their fortune. Will you tell them, Molly? Will you?"
"Ah, little Miss, you never forget old Molly, do you, dearie? Tell them to come in." Dolores feels a shiver go over her; a nasty, creepy, crawley sensation always seizes her at the mention of either Gipsy or Indian. Auntie always had such a horror of all such travelling companies. It may have been hearing her talk of them with so much repulsion that made Dolores, who is generally so fearless, feel nervous now.
"You are not frightened?" Ned Crane has watched Dolores' pretty pink colour die slowly out of her face and lips.
"Let the others go in; we will stand out here by the door to take in all that is going on inside."
When she finds she is not expected to go inside the miserable hut, Dolores brightens up, and the pink comes back to her cheeks. So they station themselves in the doorway. Contrary to most people of their or her profession, the Gipsy allows them all to remain; so, as each is being warned of that which is in store for them, good, bad or indifferent, every one hears what every one else is told.