“The words which followed were more diplomatic than the action. ‘You are the King’s best friend,’ she said, examining the palm she had taken. Then his Majesty cried, ‘What do you read in my hand?’ ‘You are the King’s worst enemy,’ said the pert hussy. This nonplussed Charles for the moment, who replied at last, ‘I think you are more successful with my comrade. Read all you find in his palm, I beg of you.’ Then the gipsy, if such she was, went glibly on. ‘Your fate and that of the King are interwoven. If you overcome your enemies, the King will overcome his. If you fall, the King falls. Your doom will be the King’s doom; your safety the King’s safety. At the age you shall die, at that age will the King die, and from the same cause.’ His Majesty laughed, somewhat uneasily I thought, but said jauntily, ‘I have the advantage of you, Strafford, for you may die at any moment, but I am given seven years to live, being that space younger than you.’ I was annoyed at the familiarity of the creature, and bade her take herself off, which she did after making vain appeal for some private conversation with me.” “Was she fair to look upon? In that case I do not wonder at your indignation. To learn that a handsome and young woman was searching for you in the lonely forest, to meet her at last, but in company of a King so rigid in his morals as Charles, was indeed a disappointment. You had been more favoured with any other monarch of Europe beside you. Had you no chance of getting one private word with her; of setting time and place for a more secluded conference?” A slight frown ruffled the broad, smooth brow of the statesman, but it vanished on the instant, and he shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “I but gave you a brief account of a very simple incident that you were inclined to make much of. You have now the truth, and so may dress the retailing of it in the guise that best pleases you. I make no doubt ’twill be fanciful enough when next I hear it.” “Were it any other monarch than Charles, I should say he was annoyed to find his minister so favoured; but in his mind the prediction will take more space than thought of the prophet, be she never so young or so fair. But all good wishes go toward you, my lord. It is my prayer that when next you meet the woodland sylph you are alone in the forest.” As if to show how little profit follows the prayer of a French exquisite, there stepped out from behind a thick tree in front of them the person of whom they spoke. She was tall and slender, with dancing eyes of midnight blackness, which well matched the dark, glossy ringlets flowing in profusion over her shapely shoulders. Her costume betokened the country rather than the Court, yet its lack of fashionable cut or texture was not noticed in a company of men, and the almost universal gaze of admiration that rested on her showed that in the eyes of the majority she was well and tastefully garbed.