"But I promised the vicar," Miss Chester broke in, in distress. "I think you really must go, my dears."
"Of course we will," Marie said. "If there's a fortune-teller we'll have our palms read; shall we, Dorothy?"
The elder girl shrugged her shoulders.
"You don't believe in that rubbish, surely?"
"I think it's fun," Marie answered.
She was childishly pleased when, during the afternoon, they found a palmist's tent in a corner of the big hall where the bazaar was being held.
"Do let's go in," she urged on Dorothy. "Of course, we shan't believe it, but it will be fun!"
She lifted the flap of the tent, and Dorothy reluctantly followed her.
A woman sat at a small round table in the half light of the tent. She was not at all like the usual fortune teller, and she was dressed plainly in a white frock, instead of in the usual gaudy trappings which such people affect.
She was small and dark, with rather a plaintive face and large eyes, and Marie was struck by the extreme slenderness and whiteness of her hands as they rested on a little velvet cushion on the table before her.