“_Non, Señor_, it is not I that have fortunes to tell. Ramon Pasquale never has told yet the fortune. He does not know. It is my Chiquita here, she the great fortunes can tell. She can see, oh, so far! She sees not as _el Señor_ sees, with the eyes of the head;--it is with the eyes of the mind, with the eyes of the soul that Chiquita sees. She knows how the past to tell. Aye, and the future too, she knows. She the stars can read--she reads them true. The grave to her is not closed. Fate is to the eyes of her mind as is to _el Señor’s_ eyes the open book upon his knee. She is wonderful, my Chiquita! Is it not so, _cara mia_?” There was a tender note in his voice as he addressed his aged companion. “It is so, my Ramon,” replied the woman, in a voice that fairly startled me, so clear and youthful did it seem. “It is so, and if the great _Señor_ will allow me it to tell, I will to him read the story of the past of his life, and for him open the book of the future, that he may know what shall come to him.” My expression must have betrayed the interest I felt, for the Mexican said eagerly: “To-night must _el Señor_ listen to Chiquita. To-morrow she will be gone, and it too late will be. It is not dear, _Señor_, it is _muy barato_--very cheap; only one _peso_; that is all. And so wonderful, so wonderful, _Señor_! There is none so wonderful as Chiquita. _El Señor_ he will never forget the fortune she for him will tell--and only one _peso_.” And Chiquita told my fortune, and evidently tried to give me good measure, for the stars were out and the moon was silvering the eastern sky ere she had finished. Granting that Ramon was sincere, and not merely attending to business in his enthusiastic praises of Chiquita’s professional skill, he and I differed somewhat in our estimate of it. There was nothing very new about the fortune the old woman mapped out for me. It had the same rose color as many others I had heard. There were the usual platitudes about the honors I was to win, and the riches I was to gain. I would become famous, also, and was destined to marry a woman for whom my own country surely could hold no place, for, according to the fortune teller’s description, she was to be a duchess, no less. Of course, as I did not tell Chiquita that I was already married, I could find no fault with the bride to be, especially as she was of the blood royal. But Chiquita was eloquent, in her broken way, and both she and her picturesque companion were so interesting that I did not begrudge the dollar which, after all, she had fairly earned. To hear pleasant things about one’s self is always worth the price--and there always is a price, although we are not often wise enough to know it. There was that in the poise of Chiquita’s white head and the sweetly modulated tones of her voice which, with her small, slender, beautifully formed brown hands suggested that her birth and breeding were more aristocratic than is usual with itinerant vendors of fortunes.