"Oh, I shall never forget how balefully her black eyes burned on me through the holes in her mask, as if she hated me, and what cruel glee rang in her voice as she hissed in my ear: 'You do well to choose lilies for your adorning, for they are funeral flowers, and you will soon be the bride of Death!'" And with those faltered words, the frightened girl dropped like a broken flower and hung fainting on her lover's arm. Instantly there was a great commotion, the girls rushing hither and thither for restoratives, so that Dainty soon sighed and opened her blue eyes in pathetic wonder. "Love," she murmured, weakly; and one of the girls said, pityingly: "There, dear; don't worry. Mr. Ellsworth has gone into the tent to scold the old fortune-teller for telling you such wicked falsehoods." "Just as she told all of us," added another. "Why, I never saw such a spiteful old hag in my life, promising me a drunken, abusive husband, when I am engaged to the dearest fellow in the world!" Dainty suffered them to soothe her by making light of the gypsy's predictions, while she waited uneasily for her lover's return. Love had indeed rushed away in bitter wrath to upbraid the grewsome fortune-teller; but on entering the tent, whose darkened interior and somber arrangement framed the black-gowned outlines of a tall, masked woman, he recoiled momentarily in something like awe. "Advance, mortal!" intoned a deep, sepulchral voice: "advance, cross my palm with silver, and hear the sentence of the stars that rule thy destiny!" Involuntarily Love obeyed, placing the silver on the extended palm, that seemed to tremble as he cried, angrily: "The silver is for charity, not that I believe any of your ill-timed jargon." The tall gypsy, whose brow was crowned with silvery tresses, and through whose black mask glittered fierce black eyes, answered, gibingly: "Whether you believe or not, your fate will be the same. Listen: you are a favorite of fortune, and deeply beloved by two young girls. One is as fair as a summer morn, the other dark and splendid as a moonlit summer night. Your heart inclines to the blonde, but she is false as hell; and if you wed her, you will rue your mistake throughout your life. The stars command you to wed the dark beauty your friends have chosen for you, and you will be blissfully happy." Love Ellsworth stared curiously at the speaker, then laughed, mockingly: "'How like an angel's sounds the tongue of woman, When pleading in another's cause her own!'" "What mean you?" hissed the veiled gypsy, defiantly; and he answered by snatching a ring from her extended hand, as he cried, gibingly: "I know you, Miss Peyton, by your voice and this ruby ring that you borrowed from your aunt--an heirloom in the Ellsworth family. I shall keep it to prove to Dainty that it was not a real gypsy who tried to frighten her to death, but only her affectionate cousin masquerading in a false guise in order to further her own plans."