“Jiminy whiz! Your royal splendor dazzles me!” Billy chaffed.
“I’m the Royal Egyptian Fortune Teller!” Bess announced, in a deep voice. “This is my desert tent. I shall reveal the past, present, and future to those only whom my favor shall designate. Slaves, the lamps!”
Clarence and Harry, much wrapped in white about the head, but with bare little white arms and bare little brown legs, came in solemnly and placed some red lanterns on the table. Bess posed in a chair decorated for the occasion, arranged her draperies, pulled nearer the “incense lamp,” which was her father’s Turkish cigar lighter, laid out her cards, and bent over them in grave silence.
Her absorption hypnotized the others to wondering stillness. In a moment her attitude and intensity had transported them to the mysterious East, and put upon them the spell of ancient superstitions.
At last she looked up and pointed a startling finger at May Nell. “Mary Ellen Smith, my familiars, who guard the portals of futurity, declare that you shall be the first honored. Minions, depart! Slaves, guard the door!”
Jean and the twins, Charley, George and some others, rattled down the stairs; while Clarence and Harry stood rigid, with wooden scymitars drawn, one on each side of the door.
Billy hesitated a minute. The dim room, the wicked-looking red lights, Bess so stern and mysterious,—this might frighten the little girl. He ought to wait.
“Avaunt, hesitating noddy! The angel child is quite safe!” Bess waved an arm, partly bare and brown in spots.
“Yes, go away, Billy; I’m not afraid.” May Nell laughed happily. Her quick mind was delighted with the masquerading.
Yet it was a very quiet little child that crept down to the others a few minutes later; when asked of her fortune she burst into tears.