“Did you, then, know my parents, and do you know me?”
“Yes; this is the first time you have crossed my waking eyes, but I have seen you in my dreams.”
“Your dreams?”
“Ay, Isabel Vere. What hast thou, or thine, to do with my waking thoughts?”
“Your waking thoughts, sir,” said the second of Miss Vere’s companions, with a sort of mock gravity, “are fixed, doubtless, upon wisdom; folly can only intrude on your sleeping moments.”
“Over thine,” retorted the Dwarf, more splenetically than became a philosopher or hermit, “folly exercises an unlimited empire, asleep or awake.”
“Lord bless us!” said the lady, “he’s a prophet, sure enough.”
“As surely,” continued the Recluse, “as thou art a woman.—A woman!—I should have said a lady—a fine lady. You asked me to tell your fortune—it is a simple one; an endless chase through life after follies not worth catching, and, when caught, successively thrown away—a chase, pursued from the days of tottering infancy to those of old age upon his crutches. Toys and merry-makings in childhood—love and its absurdities in youth—spadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as objects of pursuit—flowers and butterflies in spring—butterflies and thistle-down in summer—withered leaves in autumn and winter—all pursued, all caught, all flung aside.—Stand apart; your fortune is said.”
“All CAUGHT, however,” retorted the laughing fair one, who was a cousin of Miss Vere’s; “that’s something, Nancy,” she continued, turning to the timid damsel who had first approached the Dwarf; “will you ask your fortune?”
“Not for worlds,” said she, drawing back; “I have heard enough of yours.”