“Very careless, very careless indeed. Let’s see—prophecy first, then how arrived at. ‘Grandmother apparently threatened with some danger at night in immediate future. Great turmoil in the house during dark hours.’ H’m! ‘Some stranger, or strangers, coming into her life and causing great trouble and confusion, almost resulting in despair, and perhaps actually inducing illness.’ H’m! H’m! We didn’t arrive at any of this by our observations, did we, Sophronia?”
“Decidedly not,” snapped Madame, haughtily.
“And now let’s see how arrived at. H’m! H’m! Grandmother—ingress of Crab—conjunction of Scorpio with Serpens—moon in eleventh house. Yes, that’s so. Jupiter in trine with Saturn—What’s this? ‘Crab dressed implies danger—undressed Crab much safer—attempted intervention failure—she’s in a nice state now—it tried to keep her from it, but she was drawn right to it.’ Right to what?”
“The Crab?”
“Of course she was drawn to it. She depends on the Crab these nights. But what does the rest mean?”
“The Crab was dressed.”
“Dressed—what in?”
“I don’t know,” said the Prophet. “It didn’t tell me.”
Mr. Sagittarius and Madame exchanged glances.
“Explain yourself, Mr. Vivian, I beg,” cried Madame in a somewhat excited manner. “How could the Crab be dressed?”