“This is only for us girls,” rebuked Alice, “you may go practice bridge, whist, or chess.” “Will you tell us your fortunes afterward?” asked Blake. “Never—not until they come true!” laughed Natalie. “I will tell yours first,” spoke the Gypsy, looking at Natalie with what the others thought a strange glance. “I can see you have much of a fortune in your hand—and—in your face.” “Oh, how romantic! Well, I’m ready,” and Natalie went into a small room, opening off the library, with the Gypsy maiden. Then, through the closed door, came a murmur of voices, but they were drowned in the excited comments of the other three girls, while the boys added their share. Natalie came out a little later looking rather pale under her olive skin, but when quizzed about it, she laughingly declared there was no cause for it, since she had been promised a most glorious future. “You’re going to cross water, meet a dark stranger, have a light complexioned enemy and all that, aren’t you?” demanded Jack, banteringly. “Something like that,” laughed Natalie. In turn the other girls went in and came out, making merry over what they heard in secret. “Now for us!” exclaimed Blake, when Marie, the last of the quartette, had been told of the past, present and future. “I tell no more!” announced the Gypsy, coming from the room. “I am tired. If they like the gentlemen may come to our camp to-morrow. I thank you, ladies, but it is late, and I must be getting back.” “You may go out the front way,” suggested Mabel gently, for, somehow, they had all taken a liking to the pretty Gypsy stranger. “Good-night,” she said, and standing on the front steps they all watched the Gypsy girl hurry down the street. “Not half bad looking!” commented Jack. “Ahem!” “She was rather a gentle little creature,” commented his sister. “I wonder how they can stand such a life—in wagons traveling all over?” questioned Mabel. “Well, she made a pretty good thing out of you girls,” declared Phil. “Now tell us what she said.” “Never!” came firmly from Natalie, and the others echoed her words. As they went back into the library they saw Mrs. Anderson standing at the door. Her face wore rather a worried look. “What is it, momsey?” asked Phil. “Did you want your fortune told?” “I just happened to think,” she answered, “that I had left my diamond ring on the table in the little room off the library. I came down to get it, but it isn’t there. Have you seen it, Mabel?” “Mother! your diamond ring?” “Yes.” “And it was in that room that the Gypsy girl told our fortunes.” “With the light turned low,” added Natalie. Phil brushed past his sister, and, turning up the gas, looked carefully on the table in the little room. “No ring here, mother,” he announced. “Are you sure you left it here?” “Yes, I was putting away some seldom-used books, and I took it off so I would not knock it against the shelves. Perhaps it is on the floor.”