Mrs. Osborne came, beautiful and striking, dressed as an Eastern sorceress, and almost at once she had a circle around her in the corner of the conservatory, and was telling fortunes and interpreting dreams with all the arts of a charlatan and the charm of a lovely woman. The crimson tunic, the dark blue petticoat worked with gold, the shapely ankles with broad gold bracelets, the glittering scarfs which draped her shoulders and revealed her white arms, the dull gold band on her forehead, binding back the masses of glossy auburn hair, all combined to make her a charming and seductive picture. She told fortunes well; it is an alluring art, it shows pretty hands and delicate wrists, and the downward sweep of soft eyelashes, the arch of a white brow, besides that swift glance upward from bewilderingly lovely eyes-- The women looked at her over their shoulders and stiffened, while the men all had their fortunes told and found the lines on their palms of sudden and absorbing interest. One or two elderly women, the mothers of grown boys and girls, were seized with a sudden desire to go home, but it was no easy matter because the elderly gentlemen belonging to them, and also the fathers of grown boys and girls, found that corner too attractive to leave. Judge Temple, observing it with his shrewd common sense, smiled with much secret amusement and looked about to see if Rose saw it, for Rose would understand though she had not his sense of humor. But he discovered Rose greeting William Fox with an expression on her sweet young face which startled him. She was smiling and speaking easily, he saw that, but what was it in her eyes, her lips, which seemed almost too subtle to interpret? The judge stopped talking to his nearest neighbor and looked at his own child oddly; could it be? Then he looked at Fox and there he read something too, the look of a man in pain, physical or mental, a pain which he meant to hide. The old judge had been to the supper-table and was standing at the door when he saw them; he quite forgot the plate in his hand, he almost let a strawberry roll off on to the floor when he heard Mrs. Allestree’s voice. “Dear me, judge, do remember that I’m wearing my one evening gown and strawberries stain!” and she laughed as she saw his start; “there, see what it is to be a philosopher out for an evening with a frivolous old woman!” “My dear Jane,” replied the judge--he had gone to school with Mrs. Allestree--; “I’d forgotten that it wasn’t a strawberry vine. Do you remember those we stole from old Mr. White’s patch a thousand years ago?” “Do I?” the old woman sighed; “Stephen,” she said, “how much nicer they were than these! I wonder if I stole some now--” “I should send you to jail,” he retorted, twinkling, “the second offense, you know!” “You stole those yourself!” she replied indignantly, “I was only accessory after the fact! Who in the world is that?” she added, catching her breath and craning her neck to peep through the throng.