"Oh, Joe, I am ashamed of you!" said Bell Crawford, and she lay back in her chair, very near to a fit of the sulks.
"Really," said Tom Leslie, blushing a little in spite of himself, though without knowing precisely why—"really, Miss Harris, I am afraid I am not the best of men, but I hope I do not deserve any such terrible appellation."
"There, I told you so, Bell, I knew he wasn't!" went on the wild girl, as if she had been asking a solemn question and receiving a conclusive answer. "We can trust him—he says we can, and I am going to put him to the test at once. Suppose, Mr. Leslie, that a couple of distressed damsels—"
"What a ninny you are making of yourself!" put in Miss Crawford, in a tone not very far from earnest.
"Suppose that a couple of distressed damsels," Josephine Harris went on, without heeding her in the least, "about to pass through a gloomy and desolate wood, on the way to an enchanted castle, should appeal to you to accompany them and give them the benefit of your courage and your—yes, your respectability, in the adventure; would you go with them, even if you were obliged to abandon a game of billiards and forfeit the smoking of two cigars for that purpose?" and she threw herself back in her chair, screwed her face into the expression supposed to belong to a grand inquisitor, and waited for a reply.
"I would do my devoir like a true knight," said Leslie, making a mock bow over the table, with his hand on his heart, "even if I forfeited thereby not only two cigars but four and the playing of two whole games of billiards."
"Generous knight!" said Joe, still preserving her melodramatic tone, "we trust you—we enlist you into our service, 'for three years or during the war!' Read!" and she solemnly handed over the slip of paper, on which Leslie perceived the following advertisement, marked around with black crayon, and under the general head of "Astrology":—
"THE STARS HAVE SAID IT! MADAME ELISE BOUTELL, from Paris, whom the stars favor and to whom the secrets of the unknown world are revealed, may be consulted on any of the great events of life, at No. — Prince Street, near the Bowery, every day, between 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. Let ignorance be banished, and let the light of the world unknown dawn on the darkened minds. Persons who attempt deception in visiting Madame Boutell, will find all disguise unavailing; but all confidences are safe, as strict secrecy is observed."
"THE STARS HAVE SAID IT! MADAME ELISE BOUTELL, from Paris, whom the stars favor and to whom the secrets of the unknown world are revealed, may be consulted on any of the great events of life, at No. — Prince Street, near the Bowery, every day, between 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. Let ignorance be banished, and let the light of the world unknown dawn on the darkened minds. Persons who attempt deception in visiting Madame Boutell, will find all disguise unavailing; but all confidences are safe, as strict secrecy is observed."
"Well?" added Leslie, looking up inquiringly, after reading the mysterious announcement.
"Well?" said the mad girl, mimicking him. "Isthatall the effect it produces upon you? Do your knees not shake and does not your hair start up on end when you think of it, so that your hat—if your hat was not unfortunately hung upon the hook yonder, would require to be held on by main force?"
"Howcanyou be so absurd?" suggested Bell, who really feared that the pronounced behaviour of her friend might draw too much attention to their table, as there was indeed some danger of its doing.
"Bah!" said Joe, "Icouldn'tbe absurd! I was 'never absurd in my life,' as Sir Harcourt Courtley says. But Mr. Leslie!—what have I said? You look pale—ill!" and the face of the young girl tamed instantly to an expression of genuine alarm, not at all unwarranted by the circumstances. The face of Tom Leslie had indeed undergone a sudden change. His usual ruddy cheek seemed ghastly white, his eyes stared glassily, and there was a quick convulsive shiver running over his frame which did not escape the notice of either of his two companions. The kind heart of Josephine Harris at once hit upon a solution for the otherwise strange spectacle. She had said some awkward word—touched some hidden and painful chord connected with past suffering or experience; and she felt like having her tongue extracted at the root for the commission of such a blunder.
Whatwasthe cause of this sudden emotion? The explanation may not be so difficult to any thoughtful reader of this story as it was to the two young girls who sought it. Tom Leslie had merely read over the mendacious advertisement, at first, with the same indifference given to thousands of corresponding humbugs; and at the first reading he had not noticed the place at all. At the second reading, his mind took in the direction: "No. — Prince Street, near Bowery," and at the same moment he comprehended the words, "Madame Elise Boutell,from Paris." Tom Leslie was every thing else than a coward; and yet he had shuddered before at the sight and the memory of the "red woman:" he whitened and shuddered now. What if another meeting with that mysterious woman was at hand?—if the scenes of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard were about to be re-enacted? The French name and the words "from Paris," the place, which seemed to him undoubtedly the same of his adventure with Harding—all made up a presumption of identity that was for the moment overwhelming.
But those who show surprise or emotion quickest are not slowest to recover from its effects. Whatever he felt, nothing more was to be shown the two ladies. Reaching for a glass of ice-water standing upon the table, Leslie drank the whole of it off at a draught, and the electric shock at once restored the tone to his system and brought back the red blood to his face. With a laugh he said:
"I really beg ten thousand pardons for alarming you, but these slight attacks are constitutional, and they need not cause the least fear. That is over, and I am as well as ever. What was it you were saying, Miss Harris?"
"Thank heaven that youarebetter!" said the kind-hearted girl. "I was really for the instant apprehensive that something I had said might have awakened some painful recollection. I was trying to get you, at that moment, to understand the terrible significance of this advertisement."
"Well," said Leslie, laughing, "what am I to understand? That you have been testing the skill of this seeress, or that you are about to do so?"
"There you go!" said Joe Harris. "Now you are on theotherside of the fence! Excuse my similes, but I have not always been cooped up in this humdrum city—I occasionally pay visits to the country. A moment ago you grew pale at the name of the mighty Madame Boutell, whose cognomen sounds a good deal like the Yankee 'doo tell!' I admit; and now you are laughing at her!" The young girl had by this time recovered from her good-natured anxiety and regained her habitual vivacity, and she rattled on to the great edification of her auditors, and happily without attracting any additional notice from the people at the other tables. "Yes, sir, Miss Crawford and myself are about to consult this modest exponent of the mysteries of the stars, though about what we have not the least idea.Ihave not, at least; haveyou, Bell?"
"Not the ghost of an idea," was the answer of Miss Crawford.
"Ghost is good, in that connection," rattled on the gay girl. "You see I have never yet consulted a fortune-teller, and I am afraid I shall soon be too old to do it to advantage. I lost my faith in Santa Claus, a good many years ago, and long before my stocking was too big to hang up; and I cried over the discovery for a fortnight. Suppose I should lose my faith in fortune-telling before I ever had any experience in that direction—wouldn't it be dreadful?"
"But why this lady in particular?" asked Leslie, who was at the moment studying a theme which no man knows more about to-day than was known in the days of Aristotle—that of chances and coincidences.
"Oh," said Joe, fumbling in her pocket for other slips, and drawing them out and exhibiting them with great gravity, to the infinite amusement at least of Leslie. "Oh, I have been preparing myself, and found the best. Here is a 'Madame R.,' who has 'just arrived in the city and taken a room at No. 7 Pickle Place.' That would never do, you see. 'Taken a room' is too suggestive of limited accommodations and no carpet on a very dirty stair. Then here is another, in which 'Madame Francena Guessberg' promises to 'give information about absent friends' and to 'show the faces of future husbands.' Most of my friends who are absent I never wish to hear of again; and as to the husbands, I shall see them all soon enough, if not too soon."
"Hem!" said Leslie, though scarcely knowing why he made that comment.
"That is all," continued the wild girl. "All the rest are insignificant or impossible, except—no, here is one who promises to 'call names.' Now if there is any thing in the world that I don't like except when I do it myself, it is 'calling names.' And now see Madame Boutell. There is nothing of the petty or the insignificant abouther. She has the 'stars' at command, and is about to open the 'unknown world.' She isthewoman, of course! Knows all about the 'great events' of life. Can't be humbugged, and keeps a secret as a steel-trap holds a rat. And now, will you go with us, and protect us, and—Mr. Harding said you were a newspaper man,—will you take down a full, true and circumstantial account of all that occurs? That is what I have been trying to get at for this quarter of an hour. Will you go with us?"
"You are going to-day, then?" asked Leslie.
"Miss Harris insisted upon my accompanying her, and I half consented to do so," said Miss Bell Crawford, apologetically.
"Fiddlestick!" said the merry riddle. "Don't try to beg out of it, Miss Bell! She sent her carriage home, Mr. Leslie, so that we need not be seen going there with it; and there we were going, two lovely and unprotected females, when providence raised up a champion in the person of our new friend."
"Who hopes yet to be anoldfriend, and who will go with you, with the greatest pleasure," said Leslie. "At the same time"—reflecting a moment—"at the same time I must be as prudent about myself, for certain reasons, which I will explain some day if you wish it—as Miss Crawford has been about her carriage. Oblige me by remaining at the table here and trifling with some creams, chocolate and a few bon-bons, while I leave you for a few minutes—not more than fifteen or twenty. At the end of that time I shall be ready to accompany you."
Giving the necessary orders and throwing a bill to the waiter, Tom Leslie passed rapidly out into the street and walked quite as rapidly up Broadway, until he turned again down Broome Street, which he had quitted with Harding but a little while before. Had hemoreto do with the Police?
Fortune-telling and other Superstitions—The every-day Omens that we half believe—Origins of this Weakness—Fortune-tellers of New York, Boston and Washington.
While Tom Leslie has gone around to Broome Street on his undeclared errand, and while the ladies are making an excuse to while away the time until his return, in the discussion of the after-dinner provocatives to indigestion recommended, let us enter a little more closely upon a subject merely indicated in the foregoing chapter, and then sneered at by at least one of the conversationists—that of the fortune-telling imposition which so largely prevails, especially in the great cities, and the general course of human superstition in connection with it.
It may be set down, as a general principle, that every man is more or less superstitious—that is, impressed with ideas and omens which go beyond the material world and bid utter defiance to reason. Every woman is certainly so. It is not less undeniable, meanwhile, that nearly every man and woman denies this fact of their natures and considers the mere allegation to be an insult. Oftenest from the fear of ridicule, but sometimes, no doubt, because any discussion of the matter is deemed improper,—few acknowledge this peculiarity of nature, even to their most intimate friends: some, who must be aware that they possess it, deny it even to themselves. The subject is set down as contraband, universally, unless when the weakness of a third party is to be ridiculed, or a personal freedom from the superstition asserted; and yet this very silence and the boasting are both suspicious. No man boasts so much over his own wealth as he who has little or none; and no man is so silent, except under the influence of great excitement, as he who has a great thought oppressing him or a great fear continually tugging at his heart-strings. The most hopeless disbelievers in the Divine Being, that can possibly be met, are those who seldom or never enter into a controversy on the subject; and the least assured is he who oftenest enters into controversy, perhaps for the purpose of strengthening his own belief. ThereareCaptain Barecolts, of course, who go bravely into battle after venting boasts that seem to stamp them as arrant cowards, and who come out of the conflict with stories staggering all human comprehension; but these cases are rare, and they do not go beyond the requisite number of exceptions to justify the rule.
Perhaps the most general of the ordinary superstitions of the country is the indefinable impression that the catching a first sight of the new moon over the right shoulder ensures good fortune in the ensuing month, while a first glance of it over the left is correspondingly unlucky. (It may be said, in a parenthesis, that the fast phrase, "over the left," so prevalent during the past few years, to indicate the reverse of what has just been spoken, has its derivation from the impression that such an untoward sinister glance may neutralize all effort and bring notable misfortune.) Of a hundred men interrogated on this point, ninety-five will assert that they hold no such superstition, and that they have never even thought of the direction in which they first saw the new moon of any particular month. And yet of that ninety-five, the chances are that ninety are in the habit of taking precautions to meet the young crescent in the proper or lucky manner, or of indulging in a slight shudder or feeling of unpleasantness when they realize that they have accidentally blundered into the opposite.
Next in prevalence to this, may be cited the superstition that any pointed article, as a knife, a pin, or a pair of scissors, falling accidentally from the hand and sticking direct in the floor or the carpet, indicates the coming of visitors during the same day, to the house in which the omen occurred. Hundreds and even thousands of housewives, not only the ignorant but the more intelligent, immediately upon witnessing or being informed of such an important event, make preparation, on the part of themselves and their households, if any are felt to be necessary, for the reception of the visitors who are sure to arrive within the time indicated by the omen. Some, but not so many, add to this the superstition that the involuntary twitching of the eye-lid or itching of the eyebrow indicates the coming of visitors in the same manner; and many a projected absence from the house is deferred by our good ladies, from one or another of these omens and the impression that by absence at that particular time they may lose the opportunity of seeing valued friends.
Next in generality, if not even entitled to precedence of the last, is the superstition that the gift of a knife or any sharp article of cutlery, is almost certain to produce estrangement between the giver and the receiver—in other words, to "cut friendship." Ridiculous as the superstition may appear, there is scarcely one of either sex who does not pay some respect to it; and of one thousand knives that may happen to be transferred between intimate friends (and lovers) it is safe to say that not less than nine hundred and ninety have the omen guarded against by a half playful demand and acceptance of some small coin in return, giving the transfer some slight fiction of being a mercantile transaction. The statistics of how many loves or friendships have really been severed by non-attention to this important precaution, might be somewhat difficult to compile, and the attempt need not be made in this connection.
Thousands of musically inclined young ladies have serious objections to singing before breakfast, quoting, not altogether jocularly, the proverb that "one who sings before breakfast will cry [weep] before night," which no doubt had its origin in a proverb derived from the Orientals, that that—
"The bird which singeth in the early morn,Ere night by cruel talons will be torn."
Not less unaccountable, and yet impressive, are some of the superstitions connected with marriage, death, and the departure of friends. A belief very generally prevails that when a couple enter a church to be married, if the bride steps at all in advance of the bridegroom, he will be found an unwilling and unfaithful husband; while if the opposite should happen to be the order of precedence, even by a few inches, the marriage tie will prove a happy and long-enduring one. The belief that the bridal hour should occur during clear weather, is perhaps a natural one, and derived from well-understood natural laws affecting the physical systems of those entering into such intimate relations; but the superstition goes further and considers sunshine on the bridal day a specific against all the possible ills of matrimonial life. This feeling supplies half of a doggrel couplet which came to us from the Saxons, and which blends marriage and burial somewhat singularly:—
"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on;And blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on."
There are thousands of persons who have objections to counting the number of carriages at a funeral, from the superstition that the one who does so will very soon be called to attend a funeral at home; and the same objection exists to putting on, even for a moment, any portion of a mourning garb worn by another, under the impression that the temporary wearer will in some way be influenced to wear mourning very soon for some lost relative. No doubt fifty other and similar superstitions connected with death and burial might be adduced, even without alluding to those of more frightful import and now very little regarded, which belong more peculiarly to the Eastern world, and which inculcate the leaving open of a window at the moment of death, to allow the unrestrained flight of the passing soul, and reprobate the leaving of any open vessel of water in the vicinity of the death-chamber, in the fear that the disembodied spirit, yet weak and untried of wing, may fall therein and perish!
One more superstition, connected with the departure of friends, must be noted—the more peculiarly as there is a sad beauty in the thought. Very many nervous and excitable people fear to look after those who are going away on long journeys or dangerous enterprises, under the fear that such a look after them may prevent their return. One peculiar instance of the indulgence of this superstition, and its apparent fulfilment, happens to have fallen under notice, during the present struggle. When the President's first call for volunteers was made, among those who responded was one young lad of eighteen, a mere handsome boy in appearance and altogether delicate in constitution, who left a comfortable position to fulfil what he believed to be a stern duty. He had two female cousins, of nearly his own age, and with whom he had been in close intimacy. Going away hurriedly, with little time to bestow on farewells, he called to bid them good-bye one dark and threatening night. Some tears of emotion were shed, and the sad farewell was spoken. When he passed down the walk, both the cousins stood without the door and watched his figure as it grew dimmer and disappeared in the dusk of the distant street. When they returned to the cheerfulness of the lighted room, the younger burst into tears.
"We have doomed him," she said. "We watched him when he went away, and looked after him as long as he could be seen. He will never come back. His young life will fade out and disappear, just as we saw him fading away in the darkness."
A month later the young soldier was dead; and something more than ordinary reasoning will be necessary to persuade the two cousins—the younger and more impressive, especially—that their gazing after him did not cast an evil omen on his fate and a blight upon his life. Another near relative has since gone away on the same patriotic errand; but when the farewells were spoken in the lighted room, the two girls escaped at once and hid themselves in another apartment, so that they should not even see him disappear through the door. When last heard from,[10]fever and bullet had yet spared him; and what more is needed to make the two young girls hopelessly superstitious for life, at least in this one regard? They are not the only persons who have seen and felt thatfading out in the darknessas an omen; for the same observer who once stood on the bluff at Long Branch, as a heavy night of storm was closing, and saw the "Star of the West" gradually fade away and disappear into that threatening storm and darkness—unconscious that she was to emerge again to play so important a part in the drama of the nation's degradation,—the same observer saw the same omen at Niblo's not long ago, when the poor Jewess of Miss Bateman's wonderful "Leah" fell back step by step into the crowd, as the curtain was dropping, her last hope withered and her last duty done, and nothing remaining but to "follow on with my people."
[10]February 1st, 1863.
[10]February 1st, 1863.
And at all such times Proserpine comes back, as she may have cast wistful glances towards the vanishing home of her childhood, when the rude hands of the ravishers were bearing her away from the spot where she was gathering flowers in the vale of Enna; and we think of Orpheus taking that fatal, wistful last look back at Eurydice, with the thought in his eyes thatcould notgive her up even for a moment, when emerging to the outer air from the flames and smoke of Tartarus. Wistful glances back at all we have lost are embodied; and all these long, agonizing appeals of the eye against that fate of separation which cannot be longer combated with tongue or hand, are made over again for our torture.
It has been said that some persons endeavor to deceive themselves with reference to their holding any belief in omens and auguries. And some of those who by position and education should be lifted above gross errors, are quite as liable as others to this self-deception. Quite a large circle of prominent persons may remember an instance in which a leading Doctor of Divinity, renowned for his strong common-sense as well as beloved for his goodness, was joining in a general conversation on human traits and oddities, when one of the company alluded to popular superstitions and acknowledged that he had one, though only one—that of the "moon over the shoulder." Another confessed to another, and still another to another, while the Doctor "pished" and "pshawed" at each until he made him heartily ashamed of his confession. The man of the lunar tendencies, however, had a habit of bearding lions, clerical as well as other, and he at last turned on the Doctor.
"Do you mean to say thatyouhave no superstitions whatever, Doctor?" he asked.
"None whatever," said the Doctor, confidently.
"You have no confidence in supernatural revelations in any relation of life?" pursued the questioner.
"None whatever," repeated the Doctor.
"And you never act—try, now, if you please, to remember—you never act under impression from any omen that does not appeal to reason, or are made more or less comfortable by the existence of one? In other words, is there no occurrence that ever induces you to alter your course of action, when that occurrence has nothing whatever to do with the object in view, and when you can give no such explanation to yourself as you would like to give to the outside world, for the feeling or the change?"
"There is nothing of the kind," replied the Doctor to this long question. Then he suddenly seemed to remember—paused, and colored a little as he went on. "I acknowledge my error, gentlemen," he said. "Ihavea superstition, though I never before thought of it in the light of one. I am rendered exceedingly uncomfortable, and almost ready to turn back, if a cat, dog or other animal chances to run across the way before me, at the moment when I am starting upon any journey."
The laugh which began to run round the company was politely smothered in compliment to the good Doctor's candor; but the fact of a universal superstition of some description or other was considered to be very prettily established.
But the conversation did not end here; and one who had before borne little part in it—a man of some distinction in literary as well as political life,—was drawn out by what had occurred, to make a statement with reference to himself which exhibited another phenomenon in supernaturalist belief—a man who not only had a superstition and acknowledged it, but could give a reason for holding it.
"Humph!" he said, "some of you have superstitions and acknowledge them without showing that you have any grounds for your belief; and the Doctor, who has also a superstition, does not seem to have been aware of it before. NowIam a believer in the supernatural, and I have had cause to be so."
"Indeed I and how?" asked some member of the company.
"As thus," answered the believer. "And I will tell you the story as briefly as I can and still make it intelligible,—from the fact that a severe head-ache is the inevitable penalty of telling it at all. I resided in a country section of a neighboring State, some twenty years-ago; and about three miles distant, in another little hamlet of a dozen or two houses, lived the young lady to whom I was engaged to be married. My Sundays were idle ones, and as I was busy most of the week, I generally spent the afternoon of each Sunday, and sometimes the whole of the day, at the house of my expectant bride, whom I will call Gertrude for the occasion. I kept no horse, and habitually walked over to the village. I had never ridden over, let it be borne in mind, as that is a point of interest. I very seldom rode anywhere, and Gertrude had never seen me on horseback.
"It happened, as I came out from my place of boarding, one fine Sunday afternoon in mid-winter, that one of the neighbors, who kept a number of fine horses, was bringing a couple of them out for exercise. They were very restive, and he complained that they stood still too much and needed to have the spirit taken out of them a little. I laughingly replied that if he would saddle one, I would do him that favor; and he threw the saddle on a very fast running-mare, and mounted me. Accordingly, and of course from what appeared a mere accident, I rode over to the place of my destination.
"There was a small stable behind the house occupied by the family of my betrothed, across a little garden-lot, and I rode round the house without dismounting, to care for my horse. As I passed the house, I saw Gertrude standing at the door, and looking frightfully ill and pale. I hurried to the stables, threw the saddle from my horse, and returned instantly to the house. Gertrude met me at the door, threw herself into my arms (a demonstration not habitual) and sobbed herself almost into hysterics and insensibility. I succeeded in calming her a little, and she then informed me of the cause of her behavior. She was frightened to death at seeing me come on horseback; and the reason she gave for this was that the night before she had dreamed that I came on horseback—that her brother, a young man in mercantile business a few miles away, also came on horseback (his usual habit)—and that while her brother and myself were riding rapidly together, I was thrown and his horse dashed out my brains with his hoofs!
"Here was a pleasant omen, or would have been to a believer in the supernatural; but I belonged to the opposite extreme. I laughed at Gertrude's fears, and finally succeeded in driving them away, though with great difficulty, by the information that her brother had gone West the day before and could not possibly be riding around in this section, seeking my life with a horse-shoe. She was staggered but not satisfied—I could see that fact in her eye. Still she shook off the apparent feeling, and we joined the family. Half an hour after, her brother rode up and stabled his horse—he having been accidentally prevented leaving for the West as arranged. At this new confirmation of her fears, very flattering to me but very inconvenient, Gertrude fell into another fit of frightened hysterics; nothing being said to any of the members of the family, however. I succeeded in chasing away this second attack, with a few more kisses and a little less scolding than before. With the lady again apparently pacified, we rejoined the company, and the evening passed in music and conversation. The shadow did not entirely leave the face of Gertrude, and she watched me continually. For myself, I had no thought whatever on the subject, except sorrow for her painful hallucination.
"At about ten o'clock, the brother rose to go for his horse, and I accompanied him to look after mine but not to go home, for the "courting" hours—the dearest of all—were yet to come. At the stable, as he was mounting, we talked of the speed of his horse and of the one I rode; and he bantered me to mount and ride with him a mile. There was a splendid stretch of smooth road for a couple of miles on his way, and without a moment's thought of Gertrude I threw the saddle on my horse and rode away with him, the people at the house being altogether unaware that I had gone farther than to the stables.
"I have no idea what set us to horse-racing on that Sunday night; but race we did. Both horses had good foot and the road was excellent, though the night was dusky. Before we had gone half a mile we were going at top speed. When we reached the end of the hard road he was a little ahead, and I banteringly called to him to 'repeat.' He wheeled at once, and away we went like the wind. From turning behind, I had a little the start, and kept it. Perhaps we were fifty yards from the house, when my mare stepped on a stone, as I suppose, and went down, throwing me clear of the stirrups, up in the air like a rocket, and down on my head like a spile-driver. I of course lay insensible with a crushed skull; and the brother was so near behind and going at such speed that he could not have stopped, even if he had known what was the matter.
"Noise—lights—confusion. Gertrude bending over me in hysteric screams—so they told me afterwards. Part of the hair was gone from one side of my head, dashed off by the foot of the brother's horse, that had just thus narrowly missed dashing out my few brains. That is all, gentlemen. The dream-prophecy was fulfilled within that hair's-breadth (excuse the bad pun), by a succession of circumstances that were not arranged by human motion and could not have been expected from anything in the past; and until some one can explain or reason away the coincidence, I shall not give up my belief that dreams are sometimes revelations."
Perhaps it is idle to enter upon any speculations as to the origin of these superstitions in the human mind; as they may almost be held to be a part of nature, having a corresponding development in all countries and all ages. Some of the worst and most injurious of superstitions—those which involve the supposed presence of the dead, of haunting spectres and evil spirits, destroying the nerves and paralyzing the whole system—unquestionably have much of their origin in the "bug-a-boo" falsehoods told to children by foolish mothers and careless nurses, to frighten them into "being good." Thousands of men as well as women never recover from the effects of these crimes against the credulous faith of childhood—for they are no less. Then there are particular passages in our literature, sacred and profane, which do their share at-upholding the belief in the supernatural, especially as connected with the uninspired foretelling of future events—"fortune-telling." The case of the Witch of Endor and her invocation of the spirit of Samuel, which is given in Holy Writ as an actual occurrence and no fable, of course takes precedence of all others in influence; and the superstitious man who is also a religionist, always has the one unanswerable reply ready for any one who attempts to reason away the idea of occult knowledge: "Ah, but the Witch of Endor: what will you do withher? If the Bible is true—and you would not like to doubt that—she was a wicked woman, not susceptible to prophetic influences, and yet she did foretell the future and bring up the spirits of the dead. If this was possible then, why not now?"
From the church we pass to the theatre, and from the Book of all Books to that which nearest follows it in the sublimity of its wisdom—Shakspeare. No one doubts "Hamlet" much more than the First Book of Samuel, and yet the play is altogether a falsehood if there is no revelation made to the Prince of the guilt of his Uncle; and the spiritual character of the revelation is not at all affected by the question whether Hamlet saw orthought he sawthe ghost of his murdered father. Again comes "Macbeth," and though we may allow Banquo's ghost to be altogether a diseased fancy of the guilty man's brain, yet the whole story of the temptation is destroyed unless the witches on the blasted heath really make him true prophecies for false purposes. These sublime fancies appeal to our eyes, and through the eyes to our beliefs, night after night and year after year; and if they do not create a superstition in any mind previously clear of the influence, they at least prevent the disabuse of many a mind and preserve from ridicule what would else be contemptible.
It was with reference to fortune-telling especially that this discussion of our predominant superstitions commenced; and this indefensibly episodical chapter must close with a mere suggestion as to the extent to which that imposition is practised in our leading cities. Very few, it may be suspected, know how prevalent is this superstition among us—quite equivalent to the gipsy palmistry of the European countries. Of very late years it has principally become "spiritualism" and the fortune-tellers are oftener known as "mediums" than by the older appellation; and scarcely one of the impostors but pretends to physic the body as well as cure the soul; but the old leaven runs through all, and all classes have some share in the speculation. Sooty negresses, up dingy stairs, are consulted by ragged specimens of their own color, as to the truth of the allegation that too much familiarity has been exercised by an unauthorized "culled pusson" towards a certain wife or husband,—or as to the availability of a certain combination of numbers in a fifty cent investment at that exciting game known as "policies" or "4-11-44," erewhile the peculiar province of that Honorable gentleman who (more or less) wrote "Fort Lafayette." And,per contra, more pretentious witches (the women have monopolized the trade almost altogether, of late years) are consulted by fair girls who come in their own carriages, as to the truth or availability of a lover or the possibility of recovering lost affections or stolen property. How many of those seeresses are "mediums" for the worst of communications, or how many per centum of the habitues of such places go to eventual ruin, it is not the purpose of this chapter to inquire.
There are three recognized "centres" in the loyal States—each a city, and supposed to be an enlightened one. New York, the commercial, monetary and even military centre; Boston, the literary and intellectual; and Washington, the governmental and diplomatic. Taking up at random the first three dailies of a certain date, at hand—one from each of the three cities—the following regular advertisers are shown, quoting from each of the three "astrology" columns and omitting the directions.
New York: eleven. No. 1.—"Madame Wilson, a bona-fide astrologist, that every one can depend on. Tells the object of your visit as soon as you enter; tells of the past, present and future of your life, warns you of danger, and brings success out of the most perilous undertakings. N.B.—Celebrated magic charms." No. 2.—"Madame Morrow, seventh daughter, has foresight to tell how soon and how often you marry, and all you wish to know, even your thoughts, or no pay. Lucky charms free. Her magic image is now in full operation." No. 3.—"The Gipsey Woman has just arrived. If you wish to know all the secrets of your past and future life, the knowledge of which will save you years of sorrow and care, don't fail to consult the palmist." No. 4.—"Cora A. Seaman, independent clairvoyant, consults on all subjects, both medical and business; detects diseases of all kinds and prescribes remedies; gives invaluable advice on all matters of life." No. 5.—"Madame Ray is the best clairvoyant and astrologist in the city. She tells your very thoughts, gives lucky numbers, and causes speedy marriages." No. 6.—"Madame Clifford, the greatest living American clairvoyant. Detects diseases, prescribes remedies, finds absent friends, and communes clairvoyantly with persons in the army." No. 7.—"Madame Estelle, seventh daughter, can be consulted on love, marriage, sickness, losses, business, lucky numbers and charms. Satisfaction guaranteed." No. 8.—"Mrs. Addie Banker, medical and business clairvoyant, successfully treats all diseases, consults on business, and gives invaluable advice on all matters of life." No. 9.—"Who has not heard of the celebrated Madame Prewster, who can be consulted with entire satisfaction? She has no equal. She tells the name of future wife or husband—also that of her visitor." No. 10.—"The greatest wonder in the world is the accomplished Madame Byron, from Paris, who can be consulted with the strictest confidence on all affairs of life. Restores drunken and unfaithful husbands; has a secret to make you beloved by your heart's idol; and brings together those long separated." No. 11.—"Madame Widger, clairvoyant and gifted Spanish lady; unveils the mysteries of futurity, love, marriage, absent friends, sickness; prescribes medicines for all diseases; tells lucky numbers, property lost or stolen, &c."
Boston: thirteen. No. 1.—"The great astrologer.
"The road to wedlock would you know,Delay not, but to Baron go.A happy marriage, man or maid,May be secured by Baron's aid.
"He will reveal secrets no living mortal ever knew. No charge for causing speedy marriages and showing likenesses of friends." No. 2.—"Astonishing to all I Madame Wright, the celebrated astrologist, born with a natural gift to tell all the events of your life, even your very thoughts and whether you are married or single; how many times you will marry; will show the likeness of your present and future husband and absent friends; will cause speedy marriages; tells the object of your visit. Her equal is not to be found—has astonished thousands by her magic power." No. 3.—"Madame F. Gretzburg will ensure to whoever addresses her, giving the year of their birth and their complexion, a correct written delineation of their character, and a statement of their past, present and future lives. All questions regarding love, marriage, absent friends, business, or any subject within the scope of her clear, discerning spiritual vision, will be promptly and definitely answered ... so far as she with her great and wonderful prophetic and perceptive powers, can see them." No. 4.—"Prof. A.F. Huse, seer and magnetic physician. The Professor's great power of retrovision, his spontaneous and lucid knowledge of one's present life and affairs, and his keen forecasting of one's future career," etc. No. 5.—"Mrs. King will reveal the mysteries of the past, present and future, and describe absent friends, and is very successful in business matters. Also has an article that causes you good luck in any undertaking, whether business or love, and can be sent by mail to any address." No. 6.—"Mrs. Frances, clairvoyant, describes past, present and forthcoming events, and all kinds of business and diseases. Has medicines," etc. No. 7.—"Prof. Lyster, astrologer and botanic physician." No. 8.—"Madame Wilder, the world-renowned fortune-teller and independent clairvoyant ... is prepared to reveal the mysteries of the past, present and future." No. 9.—"Madame Roussell, independent clairvoyant, is prepared to reveal the mysteries of the past, present and future." No. 10.—"Madame Jerome Nurtnay, the celebrated Canadian seeress and natural clairvoyant, ... will reveal the present and future." (This one clairvoyant, it will be observed, has nopast.) No. 11.—"Mrs. Yah, clairvoyant and healing medium ... will examine and heal the sick, and also reveal business affairs, describe absent friends, and call names. Has been very successful in recovering stolen property." No. 12.—"Madame Cousin Cannon, the only world-renowned fortune-teller and independent clairvoyant," etc. No. 13.—"Madame Mont ... would like to be patronized by her friends and they public, on the past, present and future events."
Washington: nine. No. 1.—"Madame Ross, doctress and astrologist. Was born with a natural gift—was never known to fail. She can tell your very thoughts, cause speedy marriages, and bring together those long separated." No. 2.—"Mrs. L. Smith, a most excellent test and healing medium sees your living as well as deceased friends, gets names, reads the future." No. 3.—(Here we have the first male name, as well as apparently the most dangerously powerful of all). "Mons. Herbonne, from Paris. Clairvoyant, seer and fortune-teller. Reads the future as well as the past, and has infallible charms. Can cast the horoscope of any soldier about going into battle, and foretell his fate to a certainty." No. 4.—"Madame Bushe, powerful clairvoyant and influencing medium. Has secrets for the obtaining of places desired under government, and love-philters for those who have been unfortunate in their attachments." Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 differing not materially from those before cited as able to read the past, present and future, rejoin the parted and influence the whole future life.
And here, as by this time Tom Leslie must certainly have accomplished his business in Broome Street, and Joe Harris and Bell Crawford sipped and eaten themselves into an indigestion at Taylor's—this examination of a subject little understood must cease, to allow the three to carry out their projected folly. But really how much have superior education and increasing intelligence done to clear away the grossest of impositions and to discourage the most audacious experiments upon public patience? And yet—what shall be said of the facts—uncolored and undeniable facts—narrated in a subsequent chapter?
Ten Minutes at a Costumer's—How Tom Leslie grew suddenly old—Joe Harris' speculation on "Those Eyes"—Another Surprise, and what followed.
Mr. Tom Leslie's visit wasnotto the Police headquarters in Broome Street, albeit he turned down that street from Broadway when he reached it after leaving the two ladies at Taylor's. He took the other or upper side of the street, and stopped immediately opposite the Police building, at a two-story brick house whereon appeared the name of "R. Williams" in gilt letters, and a little lower, "Ball Costumer," and in the two first floor windows of which, over a basement set apart for the use of persons in need of bad servants and servants in search of worse places—appeared such a collection of distorted human faces that a general execution by the guillotine seemed to have been going on, with all the heads hung up against the glass to dry. The ghastly faces were, in fact, those of papier-mache masks, waiting for customers desirous of a certain amount of personal disfigurement, whether on the stage or in the masked ball; and behind one row of them could be seen the glitter of an imitation coat of mail which looked very much like the real article at a distance, but would have been of about as much use to keep out sword-point or lance-head in the tourneys of the olden time, as so much cobweb or blotting paper.
Within the inner door of the costumer's, which Leslie entered hurriedly, might have been gathered the spoils of all ages and all kingdoms, taking tinsel for gold and stuff for brocade. The robes and mantles of queens hung suspended from the walls, blended here and there with suits of beaded and fringed Indian leather, odd coats and trousers for exaggerated Jonathans, and diamonded garments of motley for clowns. Around on the floor, on two sides of the apartment, lay heaps of garments of all incongruous descriptions, from the court dress of King Charles' time to the tow and homespun of the Southern darkey, as if just tumbled over for examination. A few stage swords and spears and two or three suits of armor of suspicious likeness to block-tin, occupied one of the back corners; while suspended from pegs and arranged upon shelves were false beards, wigs and eyebrows, preposterous noses, Indian head-dresses of feathers, hats of Italian bandits wreathed with greasy ribbons, and crowns and coronets of all apparent values, from that flashing with light which Isabella might have worn when all the gold and gems of Columbus' new world lay at her disposal, to the thin band of gold with one gem in the centre of the front, which some virgin princess might modestly have blushed under on her wedding day. Through the half-open door leading to the adjoining apartment in the rear, still other treasures of costume run mad were discoverable; until the thought was likely to strike the observer that "R. Williams, Costumer," had been the happy recipient of all the cast-off clothes, hirsute as well as sartorial, dropped by half a dozen generations ranging from king to clod-hopper.
A short, dark-whiskered, sallow man came forward as Leslie entered, addressing him by name, with an inquiry after his wishes.
"I want a disguise," said Leslie—"particularly a disguise of the face, and one that can deceive the sharpest of eyes."
The costumer looked at his face for a moment. "I can make you up," he said, "so that your best friend—or what is of more difficulty, the woman who loved you best or hated you worst—wouldn't know you."
"That is it," said Leslie. "Now be quick, like a good fellow, for I have only five minutes."
"You will not need to change your pants, I think," said the costumer. "Throw off your coat—here is one that will button close and hide your vest, and I think you will find it about your size. Yours is a gray—this is a dark brown and rather a genteel garment, and will suit the gray pants."
Leslie threw off his coat and put on the brown substitute, which fitted him very respectably.
"That is enough in the way of clothes, I should think," remarked the costumer, "unless you should be dodging averysharp woman, or one of Kennedy's men."
"Itisa sharp woman I am trying to dodge," said Leslie, with a laugh, "but I think she will know very little about my clothes. The face—the face is the thing! Make me up so that you don't know me—so that I won't know myself—so that my wife, if I had one, would scream for a policeman if I attempted to kiss her."
"Yes, the face—that is what we are coming to," replied the costumer. "You have a moustache already. That we cannot very well cut off, I suppose."
"Not if I know it!" graphically but somewhat inelegantly said Tom, who had one of his many prides hidden away somewhere in the flowing sweep of that ornament to the upper lip.
"Then we must gray it!" said the costumer. "No objection to looking a little older?"
"Make me as old as Dr. Parr or old Galen's head, if you like," was the answer. "Only be quick, for the sauciest and best-looking girl in New York is waiting for me."
"To run away and be married? eh?" asked the costumer, as he went to a shelf and took down a cup of some preparation very like paint, and with it a brush. "None of my business, though! Hold still, and never mind the smell. It will be dry in two minutes, and water will not touch it, but you can clean it out at once with turpentine." He applied the mixture to Leslie's moustache, the member over it being drawn up considerably at times as if the bouquet of one of Hackley's summer gutters was rising; but in less than two minutes, as the costumer had said, the smell ceased, the mixture was dry, and Tom Leslie had a moustache grayish-white enough to have belonged to Sulpizio.
"Beautiful!" said the costumer, handing the subject a small mirror from the wall. "The hair and beard directly. Now for a complexion old enough to suit such a facial ornament." In a moment, he had a small cup of brown paint, with a camel's-hair brush, and was operating on Leslie's forehead and cheeks, artistically throwing in a few wrinkles on the former and neatly executed crows-feet under the eyes, in water-colors that dried as soon as applied. Leslie, by the aid of a glass, saw himself getting old, a little more plainly than most of us recognize the ravages made on our faces by time.
"By George!" he said. "Stop!—hold on!—don't make those crows-feet any plainer, or I shall begin to get weak in the back and shaky in the knees, and you will need to supply me with a cane."
"They will come off easier than the next ones painted there, probably!" commented the philosophical costumer, as he finished painting up his human sign. "And now for the finishing stroke!" He stepped to a drawer, took out a gray full-bottom beard, fitted it neatly to the chin, clasped the springs back of the ears, added to it a gray wig, made easy-fitting by the short hair on the head, and once more handed Leslie the glass.
The young man looked. The last vestige of youth had departed, and he appeared as he might have expected to do thirty years later when he had touched sixty and gone on downward.
"Capital!" he said—"capital! If any man, or woman, knows me behind this disguise, there is some reason beyond nature for their doing so. There—throw me a hat—anything unlike my own—for I have already remained too long. I will see you again some time this evening." Handing the costumer a bill, with the air of one who had taken such accommodations before and knew what they cost, Leslie put on a respectable looking speckled Leghorn hat brought from the back room, took one more glance at his metamorphosis in the glass, and passed hurriedly out into the street and down Broadway towards Taylor's.
To return to that place for a few moments, after Tom Leslie had left it and before he was again heard from.
Josephine Harris sat for perhaps five minutes after the chocolate was brought, toying with the spoon and the cup, a little consciously red in face, and saying never a word—an amount of reticence quite as unusual for her, as ice in summer. Bell Crawford made two or three remarks, and she answered them with "Ah!" and "Humph!" till the other pouted a little sullenly and said no more.
At length the wayward girl shoved aside her cup, stopped nibbling a bon-bon, planted one elbow on the table, leaned her chin on her hand, and looked her companion full in the face with a comic earnestness that was very laughable.
"Bell," she said, "I am gone!"
"Gone?" asked the other. "What do you mean?"
"Sent for—done up—wilted—caved in—and any other descriptive words that may happen to be in the language!" was the reply.
"What ails you? Are you crazy?" was the not unnatural inquiry of Bell.
"Crazy? No!" answered the wild girl. "I wonder if I ever shall be!" and for the instant her eyes were very sad, as if some painful thought had been touched. But the instant after sunshine broke into them again, as she said, making a motion of her hand towards the door:—
"That'she!"
Bell Crawford looked, but did not see any one, and the fact rather added to her impression that Miss Josey had suddenly taken leave of her senses. "Who'she? I don't see him!" she replied.
"Pshaw! how stupid you are!" said Josey, pettishly. "See here. Let me tell you something. Do you remember one day, five or six weeks ago, when I came into your house a little in a hurry, with a bunch of violets for Dick?"
"Yes," said Bell, "I remember it, by the fact that you nearly pulled off the bell-handle because the door was not opened quick enough."
"Right," said Joe, as if she had been complimented by the observation. "That's me. If Betty doesn't answer the bell a little quicker, some of these times, you will find that piece of silver-plating at a junk-shop, sold for old iron. Well, do you happen to remember what I told you and Dick on that occasion?"
"Oh, good gracious, no!" exclaimed Bell provokingly. "Surely you can't expect me to keep any account of whatyousay in the course of a month. Stop, though—Idoremember something. You said, I believe, that coming up Madison Avenue you found the bunch of violets carrying a small boy—or the other way; and that at the same time you found a hat—wasn't it a hat?"
"Bah!" said Joe. "You have kept hold of the wrong end of the story, of course. I said that just as I met the small boy with the violets and their perfume began to set me crazy and make me think of being out in the country among the laughing brooks and the singing birds and the—yes, the cows and the chickens—that just then some one else met the small boy and the violets. That was the proprietor of the eyes, and if it had not been for that outrageous hat I should have had a full view of them. As it was, they nearly spoiled my peace of mind altogether, and I have been sighing ever since—Heigho!—haven't you heard me sighing all around in odd corners?"
"What a goose!" was the complimentary reply of Bell. "If youhavesighed, the sound was very much like that of loud talking and laughter. But what has all that to do with to-day, and why were you pointing towards the door?"
"Why, you ninny," cried Joe, in response to the "goose" compliment just passed—"that man who has just left us—that man who is coming back in a moment—is the owner of the eyes; and those eyes are my destiny!"
"Pshaw!" said Bell, "I did not see anything remarkable about the eyes, or the man."
"Didn't you, now!" said Josephine, with the least bit in the world of pique in her voice. "Well, that is the fault ofyoureyes, and not ofhis. I tell you those eyes are my destiny—I feel it and know it. I have not seen a pair before in a long while, that looked as if they could laugh and make love at the same time, and still have a little lightning in reserve for somebody they hated. Mr. Tom Leslie—well, it is a rather pretty name, and I think I must take him."
"For shame, Joe!" said Miss Bell, her propriety really shocked at the idea of a young girl declaring herself, even in jest, in love with a man who had said nothing to justify the preference.
"Yes, I suppose it is all wrong!" said Joe, between a sigh and a laugh. "You know I have been doing wrong things all my life, and anything else would not be natural. Do you remember, Bell," and her dark eyes had an expression of demure fun in them that was irresistibly droll—"do you remember how I left all my trunks unlocked and my room door open, at the Philadelphia hotel when we were stopping there one winter on our way from Washington,—and how I left my purse on the bureau in my room and grabbed a gentleman by the arm in the street, accusing him of picking my pocket?"
"Idoremember," said Bell, a little with the air of a very proper Mentor who was not in the habit of making corresponding blunders. "And I should think, Joe, that now that you are a little older you would be a little more careful!"
"Yes, I daresay you do," answered Miss Josey, "but you know that I am myself and nobody else. I should stagnate and die in a week, if I was either one of those 'wealthy curled darlings' kept in exact position by the possession of too many thousands, or so hemmed by more confined worldly circumstances that I dared not take one step without stopping to consider the consequences. Hang propriety!—Ihatepropriety! Now you have it, and you may eat it with that last wafer!"
"How you do run on!" merely remarked Bell, who probably enjoyed the wild girl's conversation quite as much as she was capable of enjoying anything.
"Yes," said Joe, "and I should like to know any reason for stopping, at least before our impressed beau comes back. Has he gone off to make arrangements with the fortune-teller, I wonder, so as to play a trick upon us when we get there?"
"Eh," said Bell, a little startled, "could such a trick be possible!"
"Very possible, my dear!" said Joe. "I'll warrant such things have been done, and my gentleman looks just mischievous enough. But no—he would notdaredo such a thing, for he could see with half an eye that if he did I should one day pay him for it!"
"If you ever had a chance!" remarked Bell with some approach to a sneer.
"Oh," said Joe. "Trust me for that! Didn't I just tell you that I had half made up my mind to take him? and if I should, you know, I should have plenty of time to bring him into the proper subjection."
"How do you know but he may be married?" asked Bell, who had a little more forethought than Miss Joe in certain directions.
"Humph!" said Joe, "thatwouldbe awkward, especially as I am not quite ready, yet, for an elopement and the subsequent flattering paragraphs in the papers, about 'the beautiful and accomplished Miss J.H.' having left for Europe on the last steamer from Boston, in company with 'the popular journalist but sad Lothario, Mr. T.L., who has left an interesting wife and two children to deplore the departure of the husband and father from the paths of rectitude.'"
"Well, youareincorrigible!" laughed Miss Crawford, fairly carried away by the irresistible current of the wild girl's humor. "How can you talk so flippantly of things so deplorable?"
"I scarcely know, myself!" was the answer. "But there is really a dash of romance about such things, which almost makes them endurable. Poor Mrs. Brannan made a mess of it, to be sure, coming out at last with a ruined character and the widow of a man several ranks lower in the army than the husband from whom she had run away; but was there not something chivalrous in Wyman coming back at once at the breaking out of the war, and sending an offer to the man he had injured, to afford him any satisfaction he might think proper to demand?"
"And was there not something sublimely cutting," asked Bell, "in the reply of General Brannan that he demanded no satisfaction whatever, as Colonel Wyman had only relieved him of a woman unworthy of his love or confidence?"
"Yes, thatwasa little lowering to the dignity of the woman, if she had any left," said Joe. "But the Kearney elopement—was notthatromantic without any drawback? There was something of the wicked old Paladin, that rattle-heads like myself cannot help admiring, in the one-armed man whose other limb slept in an honored grave in Mexico, invading the charmed circle of New York moneyed-respectability, carrying off the daughter of one of its first lawyers and an ex-Collector—then submitting to a divorce, marrying the woman who had trusted all to his honor, and plunging into the fights of Magenta and Solferino with the same spirit which had led him into the thick of the conflicts at Chapultepec and the Garita de Belen. Poor Wyman has already expiated his errors with his life, but I do hope that Kearney may carry his remaining arm through this miserable war and live to be so honored that even his one great fault may be forgotten!"
The young girl's eyes flashed, her cheeks were flushed, and any one who looked upon her at that moment would have believed her almost brave enough for an Amazon and more than a little warped in her perceptions of what constituted the right and the wrong of domestic relations. How little, meanwhile, they would have known her! Ninety-nine out of one hundred of the women unwilling to confess that they had ever read a page of the Wyman or the Kearney scandal, and saying "hush!" and "tut! tut!" to any one who pretended to make the least defence of either—would have been found infinitely more approachable for any purpose of actual wrong or vice, than rattling, out-spoken and irrepressible Joe Harris!
Wyman was dead, as she had said—having expiated, with his life, so much as could be expiated of all past wrong, and having partially hidden the memory of his crime by his brave offer of satisfaction to the wronged husband and his unflinching conduct before the enemies of his country in battle. But how little she thought, at the moment of speaking, that the bullet was already billeted for the breast of Kearney, and that he was to fall, but a few weeks after, a sacrifice to his own rashness and the incapacity of others! Does war indeed have a mission beyond the national good or evil for which it is instituted? And are its missiles of death and the diseases to which its exposures give rise, especially commissioned to repay past crimes and by-gone errors? Not so, inevitably!—or many a worthless incapable and many a dishonest trader in his country's blood and treasure would before this have bitten the dust,—and Baker, Lyon, Lander, Winthrop and fifty other prominent martyrs to the cause of the Union would yet have been alive and battling for the right!
Suddenly, the conversation between Josephine Harris and Bell Crawford came to a conclusion, and the former sprung to her feet with a frightened and angry "ough!" while the latter leaned back in her chair in a state of stupefied vexation not easy to describe. The cause of this excitement may be briefly given. Both at the same instant discovered a face thrust down to the level of their own and immediately between them, with a familiarity most inexcusable in a stranger. Yet the face was certainly that of an entire stranger—a respectably dressed elderly man, with full gray hair and beard, and holding a speckled Leghorn hat in his hand.
"Ough! get out! who are you and what do you want here?" broke out the excited girl, with a propensity, meanwhile, to repay this second impudence of the day by such a sound boxing of the ears as would make the event one to be remembered; while Miss Crawford took a rather more practical view of the matter, with the single word "Impertinence" and a supplementary call of "Waiter!"
"Ladies! ladies! what is the matter?" asked the elderly intruder, as he saw the movements of the two girls, and the waiter hurrying up with his towel over his arm, in obedience to the call.
"Anything wanted, Miss?" asked the waiter.
"Yes," said Miss Bell Crawford. "Take that man away from this table. He must be either a wretch or a madman, to intrude in this way where he is not known or wanted."
"Yes," echoed Joe, remembering the scene in the street, only an hour or two before—"take him away, and if you can find any one to do it, have him caned soundly."
"Come, sir, you must go to another table—these ladies are strangers and complain of you," said the waiter, taking the strange man by the arm, and disposed to relieve two ladies from impertinence, though not, as suggested, to lose a customer for the house.
"Why, ladies, this treatment is really very strange!" said the man complained of, all gravity and surprise. "Just as if I was really a stranger—-just as if—"
But here he was broken in upon by Joe Harris absolutely screaming with laughter and dropping into her chair as abruptly as she had quitted it the moment before.
"Well?" queried Bell; and "Well?" though he did not give the query words, looked the puzzled waiter.
"Oh! oh! oh! that is too good!" broke out the laughing girl. "Oh! oh! oh! why don't you recognize him, Bell? That is Mr. Leslie!"
Whether Miss Joe had recognized him by the voice, the second time he spoke, or whether something in the undisguiseable eyes (were her own the keen eyes of love, already awakened, that saw more clearly than others could do?) had betrayed him—certain it was that the masquerade was over, so far as she was concerned, and our friend Tom Leslie stood fully discovered. The waiter saw that his interference was no longer needed, and moved away at once; and Bell Crawford, at length fully aware of the trick, joined less noisily in the laugh which convulsed her friend.
"And what does the masquerade mean?" finally asked the soberer of the two girls, as they were leaving the saloon,—while the other, who wished to know much worse, was considerably more ashamed to ask.
"Humph!" answered Tom Leslie. "You have a right to ask, ladies, but if you will excuse me I should prefer not to answer until the visit is paid. You will remember that I told you I had a reason something like your own for leaving the carriage; and if for the present you will accept the explanation that I wish to test the accuracy of the fortune-teller without her being at all indebted to any observation of my face or any possible previous recollection of me, I shall be your debtor to the extent of a full explanation afterwards, should you think proper to demand it."
It is not impossible that Joe Harris, who had just been congratulating herself upon a promenade with a man not only good-looking but comparativelyyoung, may have had her personal objections to the even temporary substitution of sixty-five or seventy; but if so, her red lip only pouted a little, and she said nothing more on the subject as the three took their way up Broadway and down Prince Street to the place where all the secrets of the past, present and future were to be revealed.