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      Zaïda, the Mysterious Prophetess of the Golden Orient

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      This is the story of how we were gipsies and wandering minstrels. And, like everything else we did about that time, it was done to make money for Miss Sandal, whose poorness kept on, making our kind hearts ache.

      It is rather difficult to get up any good game in a house like Miss Sandal's, where there is nothing lying about, except your own things, and where everything is so neat and necessary. Your own clothes are seldom interesting, and even if you change hats with your sisters it is not a complete disguise.

      The idea of being gipsies was due to Alice. She had not at all liked being entirely out of the smuggling affray, though Oswald explained to her that it was her own fault for having been born a girl. And, of course, after the event, Dicky and I had some things to talk about that the girls hadn't, and we had a couple of wet days.

      You have no idea how dull you can be in a house like that, unless you happen to know the sort of house I mean. A house that is meant for plain living and high thinking, like Miss Sandal told us, may be very nice for the high thinkers, but if you are not accustomed to thinking high there is only the plain living left, and it is like boiled rice for every meal to any young mind, however much beef and Yorkshire there may be for the young insides. Mrs. Beale saw to our having plenty of nice things to eat, but, alas! it is not always dinner-time, and in between meals the cold rice-pudding feeling is very chilling. Of course we had the splendid drawings of winged things made by our Flying Lodger, but you cannot look at pictures all day long, however many coloured chalks they are drawn with, and however fond you may be of them.

      Miss Sandal's was the kind of house that makes you wander all round it and say, "What shall we do next?" And when it rains the little ones get cross.

      It was the second wet day when we were wandering round the house to the sad music of our boots on the clean, bare boards that Alice said—

      "Mrs. Beale has got a book at her house called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' You might ask her to let you go and get it, Oswald. She likes you best."

      Oswald is as modest as any one I know, but the truth is the truth.

      "We could tell our fortunes, and read the dark future," Alice went on. "It would be better than high thinking without anything particular to think about."

      So Oswald went down to Mrs. Beale and said—

      "I say, Bealie dear, you've got a book up at your place. I wish you'd lend it to us to read."

      "If it's the Holy Book you mean, sir," replied Mrs. Beale, going on with peeling the potatoes that were to be a radiant vision later on, all brown and crisp in company with a leg of mutton—"if it's the Holy Book you want there's one up on Miss Sandal's chest of drawerses."

      "I know," said Oswald. He knew every book in the house. The backs of them were beautiful—leather and gold—but inside they were like whited sepulchres, full of poetry and improving reading. "No—we didn't want that book just now. It is a book called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' Would you mind if I ran up to your place and got it?"

      "There's no one at home," said Mrs. Beale; "wait a bit till I go along to the bakus with the meat, and I'll fetch it along."

      "You might let me go," said Oswald, whose high spirit is always ill-attuned to waiting a bit. "I wouldn't touch anything else, and I know where you keep the key."

      "There's precious little as ye don't know, it seems to me," said Mrs. Beale. "There, run along do. It's on top of the mantelshelf alongside the picture tea-tin. It's a red book. Don't go taking the 'Wesleyan Conference Reports' by mistake, the two is both together on the mantel."

       "I SAY, BEALIE DEAR, YOU'VE GOT A BOOK UP AT YOUR PLACE."

      Oswald in his macker splashed through the mud to Mrs. Beale's, found the key under the loose tile behind the water-butt, and got the book without adventure. He had promised not to touch anything else, so he could not make even the gentlest booby-trap as a little surprise for Mrs. Beale when she got back.

      And most of that day we were telling our fortunes by the ingenious means invented by the great Emperor, or by cards, which it is hard to remember the rules for, or by our dreams. The only blights were that the others all wanted to have the book all the time, and that Noël's dreams were so long and mixed that we got tired of hearing about them before he did. But he said he was quite sure he had dreamed every single bit of every one of them. And the author hopes this was the truth.

      We all went to bed hoping we should dream something that we could look up in the dream book, but none of us did.

      And in the morning it was still raining and Alice said—

      "Look here, if it ever clears up again let's dress up and be gipsies. We can go about in the distant villages telling people's fortunes. If you'll let me have the book all to-day I can learn up quite enough to tell them mysteriously and darkly. And gipsies always get their hands crossed with silver."

      Dicky said that was one way of keeping the book to herself, but Oswald said—

      "Let her try. She shall have it for an hour, and then we'll have an exam. to see how much she knows."

      This was done, but while she was swatting the thing up with her fingers in her ears we began to talk about how gipsies should be dressed.

      And when we all went out of the room to see if we could find anything in that tidy house to dress up in, she came after us to see what was up. So there was no exam.

      We peeped into the cupboards and drawers in Miss Sandal's room, but everything was grey or brown, not at all the sort of thing to dress up for children of the Sunny South in. The plain living was shown in all her clothes; and besides, grey shows every little spot you may happen to get on it.

      We were almost in despair. We looked in all the drawers in all the rooms, but found only sheets and tablecloths and more grey and brown clothing.

      We tried the attic, with fainting hearts. Servants' clothes are always good for dressing-up with; they have so many different colours. But Miss Sandal had no servant. Still, she might have had one once, and the servant might have left something behind her. Dora suggested this and added—

      "If you don't find anything in the attic you'll know it's Fate, and you're not to do it. Besides, I'm almost sure you can be put in prison for telling fortunes."

      "Not if you're a gipsy you can't," said Noël; "they have licences to tell fortunes, I believe, and judges can't do anything to them."

      So we went up to the attic. And it was as bare and tidy as the rest of the house. But there were some boxes and we looked in them. The smallest was full of old letters, so we shut it again at once. Another had books in it, and the last had a clean towel spread over what was inside. So we took off the towel, and then every one said "Oh!"

      In right on the top was a scarlet thing, embroidered heavily with gold. It proved, on unfolding, to be a sort of coat, like a Chinaman's. We lifted it out and laid it on the towel on the floor. And then the СКАЧАТЬ