"Yes," said Alick. "If I could win over one soul to the higher life, I should count myself repaid for all my exertions. We must all have our small beginnings." "I am an odd old fellow, as you know, Mr. Corfield," laughed Emmanuel Gryce. "Give me your hand: I can sometimes see a good deal of the future in the hand." Alick blushed and looked awkward, but he gave his bony, ill-shaped hand all the same. After a little while, during which Mr. Gryce had bent this finger this way and that finger another way, had counted the lines made by the bended wrist, and had talked half to himself of the line of Jupiter and the line of Saturn, the line of life and that of Venus, he said quietly, "You will have your wish, and soon. I see a most important change of residence at about this time, which in conjunction with this," pointing to a small cross at the root of the fourth finger, "will be certainly to your advantage." "How strange!" said Alick. "One scarcely knows whether to laugh at it all as old wives' fables or to believe in the mysterious forewarnings of fate, the foremarkings of the future." "There are more things in heaven and earth--" said Mr. Gryce. "And we know so little we may well believe a trifle more." The fact was, all this was founded on these circumstances: He had at this moment a letter in his pocket from his sister Keziah telling him that old Priest Wilson had been found dead in his bed last night; the bishop's chaplain was a friend of his, both having been at the same station in India; and the perpetual curacy of Monk Grange was one which, if offices went according to their ratio of unpleasantness, a man should have been paid a large income to take. Hence there was no chance of a rush for the preferment, and the bishop would be grateful for any intimation of a willing martyr. Through all of which chinks whereby to discover the future Mr. Gryce founded his prophecy; and through them, too, it came about that he proved a true prophet. In three days' time from this the post brought a letter to Alick Corfield from the bishop offering him the perpetual curacy of Monk Grange, income seventy pounds a year and a house.