nce drawing forth every third card of each heap, and
disposing them in a circle, side by side. When they were so arranged, he
bent over, as if to study them, concealing his eyes from me by his
hand; but at the same time, as I could perceive, keenly watching my
face between his fingers. "There is some great mistake here," said he
at length, in a voice of irritation. "I have drawn the cards wrong,
somehow; it must be so, since the interpretation is clear as print. What
an absurd blunder, too!" and he seemed as if about to dash the cards up
in a heap, from a sense of angry disappointment.

"Nay, nay," cried I, interposing. "Let us hear what they say, even
though we may dispute the testimony."

"If it were less ridiculous it might be offensive," said he, smiling;
"but being as it is, it is really good laughing-matter."

"I am quite impatient,--pray read on."

"Of course it is too absurd for anything but ridicule," said he,
smiling, but, as I thought, with a most malicious expression. "You
perceive here this four of clubs, which, as the first card we turn,
assumes to indicate your commencement in life. Now, only fancy, Monsieur
le Comte, what this most insolent little demon would insinuate. Really,
I cannot continue. Well, well, be it so. This card would say that you
were not only born without rank or title, but actually in a condition of
the very meanest and most humble poverty. Isn't that excellent?" said
he, bursting out into a fit of immoderate laughter, in which the
spiteful glance of his keen eyes seemed to pierce through and through
me.

As for me, I laughed too; but what a laugh it was! Never was a burst
of natural sorrow so poignant in suffering as that forced laugh, when,
covered with shame, I sat there, beneath the sarcastic insolence of the
wretch, who seemed to gloat over the tortures he was inflicting.

"I can scarcely expect that this opening will inspire you with much
confidence in the oracle," said he; "the first step a falsehood,
promises ill for the remainder of the journey."

"If not very veracious," said I, "it is at least very amusing. Pray
continue."

"What would the old counts of your ancestry have said to such a
profanation?" cried the Chevalier. "By Saint Denis, I would not
have been the man to asperse their blood thus, in their old halls at
Grenada!"

"_We_ live in a less haughty age," said I, affecting a smile of
indifference, and motioning to him to proceed.

"What follows is the ver