te and I took little
tours around; we were at a Fair in a small town where there were some
real Romany gypsies and one insisted on reading Aunt Kate's future. She
spoke of mamma's walking without crutches, which we couldn't believe and
said after we came home something mysterious would happen to us, that a
member of the family would come from a great distance, that the person
who had her in charge would die, but Aunt Kate laughed and said we had
had no mysterious marriages nor sudden disappearances, so that could
hardly come true."

Phillipa had been considering. "Girls let's go," she exclaimed. "Mrs.
Barrington didn't actually forbid it. She said: 'Girls I hope none of
you will be foolish enough to spend your money on such nonsense. Those
people are generally impostors.' I'd like to have a peep into the
future. There's a young man I am interested in. Now, if he's all fair
and square and means business--"

"You're always on the anxious seat of lovers," said Louie, "and you seem
to have them by dozens."

"I want the very best and richest. Girls, my mother was married when she
was seventeen, and I'll be nineteen in June; but she didn't go to
boarding school for three years and waste her time."

"And I want a tour abroad--a winter or summer in Paris--which is most
attractive, and there may be a little chance of some one leaving father
a fortune. Oh, let us go--just for the fun if nothing else," and Louie
glanced up in her radiant prettiness.

There is something tempting to the young in a peep in the wide
mysterious future. Joys and the so-called good luck are delights to hope
for and it is seldom that any dark pages are unfolded to youth. So the
girls talked and agreed to go the next afternoon.

Examinations were in the morning and the girls had the afternoon to
themselves. Four were going to a musicale, half a dozen to do some last
shopping.

"We'll put on something out of the ordinary line," said Phil. "Hoods and
veils and I'll wear my old gray coat. Mother would make me bring it and
I've not had it on once. We'll trot across the park, shortest route, and
hold our heads down."

"And then run round to Crawford House and have some hot chocolate," said
Zay.

It was a winter when Tam o' Shanters were all the rage. Zay had a white
one with two fluffy rose-colored rosettes. As she passed through the
hall she saw Clara Arnold's blue one lying on the bed. She had always
tabooed blue. Now with a sudden impulse she put