"Suppose we each have it different?" replied Grace. "You take the cards, I'll take the astrology, and some of the others can use the lines on their hands." "Very well," replied Isa, turning to the gypsy, "I reckon I'll take the cards. Aren't they just as good?" "First," replied Mrs. Gypsy, with a solemn glance sky-ward, "first you may cross my palms with silver." "We've nothing but scrip," replied Grace, who was obliged to do the financial business for the whole party. "They said you asked six bits apiece for your fortunes, and we've brought it," added she, putting into the woman's hand three dollars and seventy-five cents in paper bills, the joint sums which the girls had brought with them. They might have made a vastly better use of their money by throwing it into the acorn-shaped stove for kindling. Grace's "six bits" was all she had left of her monthly allowance, and this she had been setting aside for the soldiers in the hospital; but the soldiers could wait a while for their currant jelly, whereas it is not every day one can have one's fortune told by a black-browed gypsy, with a turban on her head. The woman pretended to be surprised at the scarcity of silver, and the girls trembled lest she should, even now, send them off with no fortunes, just when they were on tiptoe with awe and curiosity. CHAPTER VI. MISFORTUNES. But to the immense relief of the girls, the gypsy at last consented, most kindly, to accept the money, and after the cards had been "cut," proceeded to assort them, and read from their dirty faces Isabel's future destiny. "Dark complect?" said she, looking up at Isa. "Yes, yes, coal-black hair, or will be, and a pair of eyes! There's two kinds of eyes in this world, little miss: one's the oily blank eye, and the other's the snapping black eye. Yours is the snapping black eye. 'Twill break the hearts, my dear--break the hearts," repeated Mrs. Gypsy, approvingly. "Here you are, the queen of spades, the queen of beauty, and behind you there I see trouble." The gypsy scanned the cards closely. "Ah, I know it all, now. It's a child, a girl, dead since way back. Your sister: you were named for her." The girls were dumb with surprise, and gazed at one another with parted lips. They had all heard of "the other Isa," and had seen her little head-stone in the graveyard. "You have one brother," continued the gypsy; "light hair; name begins with a T." "Thomas," cried the girls in a breath. "Where could she have heard of Tommy?" cried Grace. "Where, to be sure, miss?" was the tart reply. "Never heard of him till he looked up at me out of the cards." By this time five pairs of eyes had grown very large, and five little hearts were throbbing high with awe and curiosity. How could these children know that the gypsy was acquainted with the history of her landlord's family? How were they to imagine that she purposely told Isa's fortune first in order to excite their wonder?