"There you go!" said Joe Harris. "Now you are on the _other_ side of the fence! Excuse my similes, but I have not always been cooped up in this humdrum city--I occasionally pay visits to the country. A moment ago you grew pale at the name of the mighty Madame Boutell, whose cognomen sounds a good deal like the Yankee 'doo tell!' I admit; and now you are laughing at her!" The young girl had by this time recovered from her good-natured anxiety and regained her habitual vivacity, and she rattled on to the great edification of her auditors, and happily without attracting any additional notice from the people at the other tables. "Yes, sir, Miss Crawford and myself are about to consult this modest exponent of the mysteries of the stars, though about what we have not the least idea. _I_ have not, at least; have _you_, Bell?" "Not the ghost of an idea," was the answer of Miss Crawford. "Ghost is good, in that connection," rattled on the gay girl. "You see I have never yet consulted a fortune-teller, and I am afraid I shall soon be too old to do it to advantage. I lost my faith in Santa Claus, a good many years ago, and long before my stocking was too big to hang up; and I cried over the discovery for a fortnight. Suppose I should lose my faith in fortune-telling before I ever had any experience in that direction--wouldn't it be dreadful?" "But why this lady in particular?" asked Leslie, who was at the moment studying a theme which no man knows more about to-day than was known in the days of Aristotle--that of chances and coincidences. "Oh," said Joe, fumbling in her pocket for other slips, and drawing them out and exhibiting them with great gravity, to the infinite amusement at least of Leslie. "Oh, I have been preparing myself, and found the best. Here is a 'Madame R.,' who has 'just arrived in the city and taken a room at No. 7 Pickle Place.' That would never do, you see. 'Taken a room' is too suggestive of limited accommodations and no carpet on a very dirty stair. Then here is another, in which 'Madame Francena Guessberg' promises to 'give information about absent friends' and to 'show the faces of future husbands.' Most of my friends who are absent I never wish to hear of again; and as to the husbands, I shall see them all soon enough, if not too soon." "Hem!" said Leslie, though scarcely knowing why he made that comment.