These are no trumped-up tales after the prediction had been fulfilled. Everyone knew it to be true, and became frightened to look into the future for themselves. I was an exception to the general rule, however, and persuaded Mrs. Simmonds to lay the cards for me. I had just completed a two months' sojourn at the seaside, was in robust health, and anticipating my return home for the sake of meeting again with a friend who was very dear to me. I shuffled and cut the cards according to directions. The old lady looked rather grave. "I don't like your cards," she said, "there is a good deal of trouble before you--trouble and sickness. You will not return home so soon as you anticipate. You will be detained by illness, and when you do return, you will find a letter on the table that will cut you to the heart. I am sorry you have stayed away so long. There has been treachery in your absence, and a woman just your opposite, with dark eyes and hair, has got the better of you. However, it will be a sharp trouble, but not a lengthy one. You will see the wisdom of it before long, and be thankful it has happened." I accepted my destiny with complacency, never supposing (notwithstanding all that I had heard) that it would come true. I was within a few days of starting for home, and had received affectionate letters from my friend all the time I had been away. However, as Fate and the cards would have it, I was taken ill the very day after they were laid for me, and confined for three weeks with a kind of low fever to my bed; and when weakened and depressed I returned to my home I found _the letter on my table_ that Mrs. Simmonds had predicted for me, to say that my friendship with my (supposed) friend _was over and done with for ever_. After this I began to have more respect for cards, or rather for the persons who successfully laid them. In 1888, when I was touring with my company with the "Golden Goblin," I stayed for the first time in my life in Accrington. Our sojourn there was to be only for a week, and, as may be supposed, the accommodation in the way of lodgings was very poor. When we had been there a few days a lady of the company said to me, "There is such a funny old woman at my lodgings, Miss Marryat! I wish you'd come and see her. She can tell fortunes with the cards, and I know you believe in such things. She has told my husband and me all about ourselves in the most wonderful manner; but you mustn't come when the old man is at home, because he says it's devilry, and he has forbidden her doing it." "I _am_ very much interested in that sort of thing," I replied, "and I will certainly pay her a visit, if you will tell me when I may come." A time was accordingly fixed for my going to the lady's rooms, and on my arrival there I was introduced to a greasy, snuffy old landlady, who didn't look as if she had a soul above a bottle of gin. However, I sat down at a table with her, and the cards were cut. She