"And, in some respects, an unfortunate one," rejoined his auditor, "though, in truth, I have no great reason to complain." "Far more fortunate than unfortunate," answered the gipsy. "Here are but three crosses in all your life as yet; two so near the beginning, that you could not have felt them; and one--a deep one--much more lately." Colonel Manners smiled. "In the past you are certainly not far wrong: but it is the future I wish to hear: what of it?" "You mock us, sir," said the gipsy, eying him. "However, you shall hear your fate as it is. You shall be fortunate and unfortunate." "That is the common lot of human nature," rejoined Colonel Manners. "But herein does your fate differ from the common lot of human nature," replied the gipsy: "you shall be no longer fortunate in those things wherein you have hitherto found success; for you shall do all that you think you will not do; and prosper where you neither hope nor strive." "That is certainly a strange fate," answered Manners; "for I have ever found that success is a coy goddess, who needs all our efforts to obtain her smiles, and even then gives them but sparingly." "It _is_ a strange fate, and yet, in some sense, it is not," answered the gipsy; "your painters rightly represent Fortune as a woman, though they might as well have left her eyes unbandaged; for it is neither new nor marvellous to see woman fly from those that pursue her, and cast herself into the arms of those who care not for her smiles. And yet the fate written on that hand is strange, too; for it speaks of fortunes as fair without effort, for the future, as those of the past have been rendered by toil and exertion. It is a strange fate; but, nevertheless it shall be yours: and now, forget not my words, but, when you find them verified, remember him that spoke them." "But are you going to tell me no more?" demanded Colonel Manners: "I would fain have you come a little more to particulars, my good friend. One can make but little of these broad generalities." "One can make nothing to laugh at," answered the gipsy, "and therefore I shall keep to them, though, perhaps, I could tell you more. Remember them, however, and, as you will soon find them true, lay them to your heart, sir, and let them teach you to believe, that a thing is not false because you do not understand it; that there may be truths without the range either of your knowledge or of your faculties--some that you cannot comprehend, because they have not been explained to you; and some that, if they were explained to you a thousand times, your mind is too narrow to conceive--and yet they are." "I wish, my good friend, that I could send you to converse with Voltaire," said Colonel Manners. "Who is he?" demanded Pharold; "I do not know him."