In this moment of silence there was heard something like a voice. “Hush! What strange voice is that?” said Archer. Fisher caught fast hold of his arm. Everybody looked round to see where the voice came from. It was dusk. Two window-shutters at the farthest end of the building were seen to move slowly inwards. De Grey, and in the same instant Archer, went forward; and, as the shutters opened, there appeared through the hole the dark face and shrivelled hands of a very old gipsy. She did not speak; but she looked first at one and then at another. At length she fixed her eyes on De Grey. “Well, woman,” said he, “what do you want with me?” “Want!—nothing—with _you_,” said the old woman; “do you want nothing with _me_?” “Nothing,” said De Grey. Her eye immediately turned upon Archer,—“_You_ want something with me,” said she, with emphasis. “I—what do I want?” replied Archer. “No,” said she, changing her tone, “you want nothing—nothing will you ever want, or I am much mistaken in that _face_.” In that _watch-chain_, she should have said, for her quick eye had espied Archer’s watch-chain. He was the only person in the company who had a watch, and she therefore judged him to be the richest. “Had you ever your fortune told, sir, in your life?” “Not I!” said he, looking at De Grey, as if he was afraid of his ridicule, if he listened to the gipsy. “Not you! No! for you will make your own fortune, and the fortune of all that belong to you!” “There’s good news for my friends!” cried Archer. “And I’m one of them, remember that,” cried Fisher. “And I,” “And I,” joined a number of voices. “Good luck to them!” cried the gipsy, “good luck to them all!” Then, as soon as they had acquired sufficient confidence in her good will, they pressed up to the window. “There,” cried Townsend, as he chanced to stumble over the carpenter’s mitre box, which stood in the way, “there’s a good omen for me. I’ve stumbled on the mitre box; I shall certainly be a bishop.” Happy he who had sixpence, for he bid fair to be a judge upon the bench. And happier he who had a shilling, for he was in the high road to be one day upon the woolsack, Lord High Chancellor of England. No one had half a crown, or no one would surely have kept it in his pocket upon such an occasion, for he might have been an archbishop, a king, or what he pleased. Fisher, who like all weak people was extremely credulous, kept his post immovable in the front row all the time, his mouth open, and his stupid eyes fixed upon the gipsy, in whom he felt implicit faith. Those who have least confidence in their own powers, and who have least expectation from the success of their own exertions, are always most disposed to trust in fortune-tellers and fortune. They hope to _win_, when they cannot _earn_; and as they can never be convinced by those who speak sense, it is no wonder they are always persuaded by those who talk nonsense. “I have a question to put,” said Fisher, in a solemn tone.