Now, being steadfastly determined that my boyhood shall be less tedious in the telling than it was in the living--for I always longed to be a man, and hated my green and petticoat-governed days--I will pass forthwith to the hour when I reached the age of eighteen years. My dear father was then in Heaven, and old Betty had found, as was believed, another billet. But my mother lived, and the Vicar, like the King, had come to his own again: and I was five feet eleven in my stockings, and there was urgent need that I should set about pushing my way and putting money in my purse; for our lands had not returned with the King, and there was no more incoming than would serve to keep my mother and sisters in the style of gentlewomen. "And on that matter," observed the Vicar, stroking his nose with his forefinger, as his habit was in moments of perplexity, "Betty Nasroth's prophecy is of small service. For the doings on which she touches are likely to be occasions of expense rather than sources of gain." "They would be money wasted," said my mother gently, "one and all of them." The Vicar looked a little doubtful. "I will write a sermon on that theme," said he; for this was with him a favourite way out of an argument. In truth the Vicar loved the prophecy, as a quiet student often loves a thing that echoes of the world which he has shunned. "You must write down for me what the King says to you, Simon," he told me once. "Suppose, sir," I suggested mischievously, "that it should not be fit for your eye?" "Then write it, Simon," he answered, pinching my ear, "for my understanding." It was well enough for the Vicar's whimsical fancy to busy itself with Betty Nasroth's prophecy, half-believing, half-mocking, never forgetting nor disregarding; but I, who am, after all, the most concerned, doubt whether such a dark utterance be a wholesome thing to hang round a young man's neck. The dreams of youth grow rank enough without such watering. The prediction was always in my mind, alluring and tantalising as a teasing girl who puts her pretty face near yours, safe that you dare not kiss it. What it said I mused on, what it said not I neglected. I dedicated my idle hours to it, and, not appeased, it invaded my seasons of business. Rather than seek my own path, I left myself to its will and hearkened for its whispered orders. "It was the same," observed my mother sadly, "with a certain cook-maid of my sister's. It was foretold that she should marry her master." "And did she not?" cried the Vicar, with ears all pricked-up. "She changed her service every year," said my mother, "seeking the likeliest man, until at last none would hire her." "She should have stayed in her first service," said the Vicar, shaking his head. "But her first master had a wife," retorted my mother triumphantly. "I had one once myself," said the Vicar.