Sally felt as if her flesh were shriveling upon her bones. An actual numbness spread from her shoulders to her fingertips, in anticipation of the shock of feeling the Orphans’ Home matron’s grip upon them. How many, many times in her twelve years in the orphanage had she been roughly jerked to her feet by those broad, heavy hands, when she had been caught in some minor infringement of Mrs. Stone’s stern rules! Her hands, instinctively clasped so that her precious engagement ring might be hidden from those gimlet-like gray eyes, were so rigid that Sally wondered irrelevantly if they would ever come to life again, to curve their fingers about the magic crystal. But of course she would never “read” the crystal again. She was caught, caught! “Are you deaf?” Mrs. Stone’s harsh voice pierced her numbed hearing as if from a great distance. “I want my fortune told. I’ve paid my quarter and I don’t intend to dilly-dally around here all day.” The relief was so terrific that the girl’s body began to tremble all over, but the rigidity of terror had mercifully relaxed, so that she could lift her shaking hands. Gus, the barker, who always remained upon the platform during her “readings,” had long ago arranged a code signal of distress, and now she gave it. Her hands went up to the ridiculous crown of fake jewels that banded her long black hair and adjusted it, tipping it first to the right and then to the left, as if to ease the pressure of its weight upon her forehead. That very natural gesture told Gus more plainly than words that “Princess Lalla” was in danger and asked him to use his ingenuity to rescue her. There was no need for her to lift her eyes to him. Jerkily her hands came down, hovered over the crystal, and before Mrs. Stone could voice another harsh complaint, the sing-song voice which “Princess Lalla” used was requesting “ze ladee” to sit down in the chair opposite. But what should she tell Mrs. Stone, with whose personality and history she had been familiar for twelve years? If she dared to read “past, present and future” with any degree of accuracy, the matron would be startled into observing the “seeress” with those gimlet eyes of hers. If she went too wide of the mark in generalities, Mrs. Stone was entirely capable of raising a disturbance which would ruin business for the rest of the day. “Well, what do you see—if anything?” Mrs. Stone demanded angrily. That gave Sally her cue. Bending low over the crystal, so that her face was within a few inches of that of the woman who sat opposite her, with only the crystal stand between them, she pretended to peer into the depths of the glass ball. Then slowly she began to shake her head regretfully.