power, you are _fated_ to marry the blue eyes and light
hair." "Nay, indeed," said Sally, sighing deeply, "if I am fated, I
must; I know there's no resisting one's fate." This is a common cant
with poor deluded girls, who are not aware that they themselves make
their fate by their folly, and then complain there is no resisting
it. "What can I do?" said Sally. "I will tell you that, too," said
Rachel. "You must take a walk next Sunday afternoon to the
church-yard, and the first man you meet in a blue coat, with a large
posey of pinks and southern-wood in his bosom, sitting on the
church-yard wall, about seven o'clock, he will be the man."
"Provided," said Sally, much disturbed, "that he has blue eyes and
stoops." "It to be sure," said Rachel, "otherwise it is not the
right man." "But if I should mistake," said Sally, "for two men may
happen to have a coat and eyes of the same color?" "To prevent
that," replied Rachel, "if it is the right man, the two first
letters of his name will be R. P. This man has got money beyond
sea." "O, I do not value money," said Sally, with tears in her eyes,
"for I love Jacob better than house or land; but if I am fated to
marry another, I can't help it; you know there is no struggling
against my fate."

Poor Sally thought of nothing, and dreamed of nothing, all the week
but the blue coat and the blue eyes. She made a hundred blunders at
her work. She put her rennet into the butterpan, and her
skimming-dish into the cheese-tub. She gave the curds to the hogs,
and put the whey into the vats. She put her little knife out of her
pocket for fear it should cut love, and would not stay in the
kitchen if there was not an even number of people, lest it should
break the charm. She grew cold and mysterious in her behavior to
faithful Jacob, whom she truly loved. But the more she thought of
the fortune teller, the more she was convinced that brown hair and
black eyes were not what she was fated to marry, and therefore
though she trembled to think it, Jacob could not be the man.

On Sunday she was too uneasy to go to church; for poor Sally had
never been taught that her being uneasy was only a fresh reason why
she ought to go thither. She spent the whole afternoon in her little
garret, dressing in all her best. First she put on her red riband,
which she had bought at last Lammas fair; then she recollected that
red was an unlucky color, and changed it for a blue riband, tied in
a true lover's knot; bu