"Yes, but are you?" persisted Miss Dowson, who inherited her father's fondness for half crowns.
"Yes," said the other, in a more natural voice.
She took the girl's left hand, and pouring a little dark liquid into the palm gazed at it intently. "Left for the past; right for the future," she said, in a deep voice.
She muttered some strange words and bent her head lower over the girl's hand.
"I see a fair-haired infant," she said, slowly; "I see a little girl of four racked with the whooping-cough; I see her later, eight she appears to be. She is in bed with measles."
Miss Dowson stared at her open-mouthed.
"She goes away to the seaside to get strong," continued the sorceress; "she is paddling; she falls into the water and spoils her frock; her mother——"
"Never mind about that," interrupted the staring Miss Dowson, hastily. "I was only eight at the time and mother always was ready with her hands."