The half-crazed creature was, as usual, bare-headed, her white locks streaming in the air, her frayed and tattered finery waving fantastically about her lean, lithe figure. She looked at Bonnibel with a hideous leer of triumph. "Ah maiden!" she cried--"said I not truly that the bitter waters of sorrow were about to flow over you? You will not mock the old woman's predictions now." Bonnibel stood silent, gazing in terrified silence at the croaking old raven. "Where is the gay young lover now?" cried Wild Madge laughing wildly. "The summer lover who went away before the summer waned? Is he false, or is he dead, maiden, that he is not here to shelter that bonny head from the storms of sorrow?" "Peace, woman," said Bonnibel, sadly. "Why do you intrude on my grief with your unwelcome presence?" "Unwelcome, is it, my bonnie bird? Ah, well! 'tis but a thankless task to foretell the future to the young and thoughtless. But, Bonnibel Vere, you will remember me, even though it be but to hate me. I tell you your sorrows are but begun. New perils environ your future. Think not that mine is but a boasted art. Those things which are hidden from you lie open to the gaze of Wild Madge like a painted page. She can read your hands; she can read the stars; she can read the open face of nature!" "You rave, poor creature," said Bonnibel, turning away with a shiver of unreasoning terror, and pursuing her homeward way. Wild Madge stood still on the shore a few minutes, looking after the girl as her slim, black-robed figure walked away with the slow step of weakness and weariness. "It is a bonny maid," she said, aloud; "a bonny maid. Beautiful as an angel, gentle as a dove. But beauty is a gift of the gods, and seldom given for aught but sorrow." CHAPTER VIII.