"And thou art not afraid that harm will befall thee? Oh beware, Cuthbert, of that wicked, fierce old woman!" "Oh, I fear her not. Their queen has bidden me. They dare not defy her. I shall go to the forest and keep the tryst. I trow there be much yet for me to know." Cherry hesitated and trembled, and hesitated again, and finally said in a low whisper: "Cuthbert, it may be that there is a speedier and a safer way of discovering what thou wouldst know." "And what way is that, sweet coz?" Again came the little pause of hesitation, and then Cherry said: "We might consult the wise woman. "The wise woman! and who is she?" "There be many of them," answered Cherry, still speaking in a very low and rapid whisper. "But breathe not a word at home, for father says they be surely in league with the devil, if they be not impostors who deserve whipping at the cart's tail. But Rachel went to one three years back, and the dame told her a husband would come wooing within three short months, and told the colour of his hair and his eyes. And sure enough it all came true, and now she is quickly to be wed. And others have done the like, and the things have all come true. And she is not a wicked woman neither, for she cures agues and fevers, and the leeches themselves ask her simples of her. There may be wicked women plying this trade too; I know not how that may be. But this dame is not wicked; Rachel goes to her still, and she has never deceived her yet. But she liveth very secretly now, as a wise woman must needs to in these times; for the King, they say, is very wroth against all such, and in the country men are going about from him and burning all who practise such arts, and otherwise cruelly maltreating them. So no man speaks openly of them now, though they still ply their trade in secret." "Hast thou ever been to one thyself, Cherry?" Her face was all in a glow. She clung closer to Cuthbert's arm. "Chide me not, and tell not my father; but I went with Rachel once, when she went to have a wart charmed that was causing her much vexation. I asked nothing of the dame myself; but she took my hand and looked into my eyes, and she nodded her head and chuckled and made strange marks upon a bit of paper, which she said was casting my horoscope. And then she told me that I had an ugly lover that I loved not, but that another more gently born should come in time, and that we should love each other well and be faithful through all, and that I should end by being a lady with all I wanted at command." And there Cherry stopped, blushing and palpitating with happiness and shy joy; whilst Cuthbert, struck by this very remarkable and original specimen of fortune telling, began to think he might do worse than consult this same wise woman who had gauged his sweetheart's case so fairly.