"You've hit it this time, old lady, for I was a baby once and now I am

a young girl!" said Cap, laughing.

"You will not continue to be that which you are now!" pursued the hag,

still attentively reading the lines of her subject's hand.

"Right again; for if I live long enough I shall be an old woman."

"You bear a name that you will not bear long!"

"I think that quite a safe prophecy, as I haven't the most distant idea

of being an old maid!"

"This little hand of yours--this dainty woman's hand--will be--red with

blood!"

"Now, do you know, I don't doubt that either? I believe it altogether

probable that I shall have to cook my husband's dinner and kill the

chickens for his soup!"

"Girl, beware! You deride the holy stars--and already they are adverse

to you!" said the hag, with a threatening glare.

"Ha, ha, ha! I love the beautiful stars but did not fear them! I fear

only Him who made the stars!"

"Poor butterfly, listen and beware! You are destined to imbrue that

little hand in the life current of one who loves you the most of all on

earth! You are destined to rise by the destruction of one who would

shed his heart's best blood for you!" said the beldame, in an awful

voice.

Capitola's eyes flashed! She advanced her horse a step or two nearer

the witch and raised her riding whip, saying: "I protest! If you were only a man I should lay this lash over your

wicked shoulders until my arms ached! How dare you? Faith, I don't

wonder that in the honest old times such pests as you were cooled in

the ducking pond! Good gracious, that must have made a hissing and

spluttering in the water, though!"

"Blasphemer, pay me and begone!"

"Pay you? I tell you I would if you were only a man; but it would be

sinful to pay a wretched old witch in the only way you deserve to be

paid!" said Cap, flourishing her riding whip before a creature tall

enough and strong enough to have doubled up her slight form together

and hurled it into the abyss.

"Gold! gold!" said the hag curtly, holding out black and talon-like

fingers, which she worked convulsively.

"Gold! gold, indeed! for such a wicked fortune! Not a penny!" said Cap.

"Ho! you're stingy; you do not like to part with the yellow demon that

has bought the souls of all your house!"




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