t table; like as
if you'd heard it all before several times, no matter how funny they
talk. As for splitting, I shiver at the bare thought."

"Well, I didn't do it, really. I just got my hand over my mouth in
time."

"And what did that other woman happen to be doing?" asked Mrs Bowldler.

"I partic'l'ly noticed," said Palmerston. "She was sittin' quiet and
toyin' with her 'am."

The rain continuing, 'Bias at the close of supper sensationally produced
two packs of cards and proposed that, as soon as Palmerston had removed
the cloth, they should play what he called "a rubber to whist." He and
Mrs Bosenna cut together; Cai with Dinah. Now the two captains could,
as a rule, play a good hand at whist. On this occasion they played so
abominably as to surprise themselves and each other. Dinah did not
profess to be an expert, and Cai's blunders were mostly lost on her.
But 'Bias disgraced himself before his partner, who neither reproached
him nor once missed a trick.

"I can't tell what's come over me to-night," he confessed at the end of
the second rubber.

"Regatta-day!" laughed Mrs Bosenna, and pushed the cards away.
The wedding-ring on her third finger glanced under the light of the
hanging lamp. "Dinah shall tell our fortunes," she suggested.

Dinah took the pack and proceeded very gravely to tell their fortunes.
She began with Captain Hunken, and found that, a dark lady happening in
the "second house," he would certainly marry one of that hue, with
plenty of money, and live happy ever after.

She next attempted Captain Hocken's. "Well, that's funny, now!" she
exclaimed, after dealing out the cards face uppermost.

"What's funny?" asked Cai.

"Why," said Dinah, after a long scrutiny, during which she pursed and
unpursed her lips half a dozen times at least, "the cards are different,
o' course, but they say the same thing--dark lady and all--and I can't
make it other."

"No need," said Cai cheerfully, drawing at his pipe (for Mrs Bosenna had
given the pair permission to smoke). "So long as you let 'Bias and me
run on the same lines, I'm satisfied. Eh, 'Bias?"

"But 'tis the _same_ lady!"

"Oh! That would alter matters, nat'ch'rally."

Dinah swept the cards together again and shuffled them. "Shall I tell
_your_ fortune, mistress?" she asked mischievously.

"No," said Mrs Bosenna, rising. "The rain has stopped, and it's time we
were getting home, between the showers."

Again Captain Cai and