By this time two or three of the other girls had come up, and were gathering round. There ensued some laughing and giggling. "I want to tell your fortunes," said the gipsy, touching one and another in a persuasive, friendly manner. "I heard there was some pretty young women at this place, and I came to it o' purpose. Take me into your bright kitchen there." "The old missis, she do be in the way," whispered the buxom kitchen-maid, who was from Sussex. "Sure and the missus wouldn't want to deprive you of hearing o' the future--and the sort o' looks o' the man that's waiting for ye, my lass," returned the gipsy, walking boldly of her own accord into the kitchen. The giggling servants followed her, and one of them dexterously drew to the door of Mrs. Stone's parlour. Phemie hurried in with the tea-tray, which she arranged on the round table; and in going out shut the door. Bright sixpences were brought forth, hands were crossed with the silver, and the credulous girls listened to "their fortunes." Presently Dorothy Stone, sipping her tea and eating her muffin in quietness, became aware of some unusual sounds, as of murmurings, in the kitchen, interspersed with smothered bursts of laughter. "What can it be?" thought Dorothy. "They be always up to some nonsense when Aaron's away." Opening the door, she looked out upon the scene; the wild, formidable gipsy woman seated in her scarlet trappings; and half-a-dozen of the girls standing round her. Dorothy, very much startled at the moment, shrieked out, and the girls looked round. "What be you all at there?" she called out in a tremor. "Who is that? Sally, this kitchen is not your place; what do you do in it?" The Sussex girl, who may have been addressed because she was the tallest and biggest, turned her laughing face to her mistress and went into the parlour. Dorothy, not feeling herself very competent to cope with this, was sitting down again. "Oh, missus, do ye not be angry now," said the girl in her good-humoured way. "We be only having our fortins told; she'll be gone directly. She do be and say as my man'll be a soldier, and I'll have to ride on the baggige-waggin." Dorothy took heart and courage--what would Miss Winter say if she knew that she had allowed this? "I order you to be gone," she said, her quavering voice marring the implied authority in no small degree. "Go out of the house at once; how dared you to come into it?" "Who is that?" cried the gipsy. "Hush! It be Mrs. Stone, the housekeeper," whispered Phemie. "You had better go." The gipsy woman rose, showing her large white teeth, and strode to the door of the inner room. "Let the poor gipsy tell your fortune, good mistress," she said, with smiling lips and a curtsey. For once Dorothy was roused to anger. "Go away, you bold woman!" she cried shrilly. "Don't attempt to tell your lies to me. You have told enough to those silly girls."