the thought even of
ices and oysters and jellies and fruits, and the score of unnamable
luxuries whereto the young revelers were duly summoned at half past ten
o'clock.

Four days' anticipation--four hours' realization--culminated in the
glorious after-supper midnight dance, when, marshaled hither and thither
by the ingenious orders of the band, the jubilant company found itself,
just on the impending stroke of twelve, drawn out around the room in one
great circle; and suddenly a hush of the music, at the very poising
instant of time, left them motionless for a moment to burst out again in
the age-honored and heartwarming strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Hand
joining hand they sang its chorus, and when the last note had
lingeringly died away, one after another gently broke from their places,
and the momentary figure melted out with the dying of the Year, never
again to be just so combined. It was gone, as vanishes also every other
phase and grouping in the kaleidoscope of Time.

"Now is the very 'witching hour' to try the Sortes!"

Margaret Rushleigh said this, standing on the threshold of a little
inner apartment that opened from the long drawing-room, at one end.

She held in her hand a large and beautiful volume--a gift of Christmas
Day.

"Here are Fates for everybody who cares to find them out!"

The book was a collection of poetical quotations, arranged by numbers,
and to be chosen thereby, and the chance application taken as an oracle.

Everything like fortune telling, or a possible peering into the things
of coming time, has such a charm! Especially with them to whom the past
is but a prelude and beginning, and for whom the great, voluminous
Future holds enwrapped the whole mystic Story of Life!

"No, no, this won't do!" cried the young lady, as circle behind circle
closed and crowded eagerly about her. "Fate doesn't give out her
revelations in such wholesale fashion. You must come up with proper
reverence, one by one."

As she spoke, she withdrew a little within the curtained archway, and,
placing the crimson-covered book of destiny upon an inlaid table,
brought forward a piano stool, and seated herself thereon, as a
priestess upon a tripod.

A little shyly, one after another, gaining knowledge of what was going
on, the company strayed in from without, and, each in turn hazarding a
number, received in answer the rhyme or stanza indicated; and who shall
say how long those chance-directed words, chosen for