those secrets should be revealed which baffle the closest study and the deepest science!"
"Perhaps," replied he, "she does not exactly credit the fortune just foretold; but, at all events, it is pleasant to think about, and it enables her to dwell on the subject nearest her heart."
He was right: love delights in hearing its own name, and has a childish pleasure in making excuses for the enjoyment it takes in aught that links its future to that of the beloved. Moreover, Lucy had a pretty feminine credulity about her, which was fain to believe, especially a prophecy that echoed her hope. Wiser heads than her's have their superstitions; and so far from wondering that people should seek to dive into the future, and attach faith to the spell and to the omen, the real wonder is, that the future, the dark, the terrible, the fast-approaching, should excite so little fear and so little attention as it does.
Another winding in their path brought them to the gipsy, who immediately addressed them. She was a picturesque specimen of the race. Her complexion, of the deepest olive, was relieved by the peculiar and rich red which gives such light to the small bright eye—half arch, half cunning. Her long black hair hung in straight but thick masses over her forehead and round her throat.
