d, paying great attention as she went not to walk over any
straws which lay across, and carefully looking to see if there were
never an old horseshoe in the way, that infallible symptom of good
fortune.

While the clock was striking seven, she returned to the churchyard,
and, O the wonderful power of fortune-tellers, there she saw him!
there sat the very man: his hair as light as flax, his eyes as blue as
buttermilk, and his shoulders as round as a tub. Every tittle agreed,
to the very nosegay in his waistcoat buttonhole. At first, indeed, she
thought it had been sweet-briar, and glad to catch at a straw,
whispered to herself, It is not he, and I shall marry Jacob still; but
on looking again, she saw it was southernwood plain enough, and that
of course all was over. The man accosted her with some very
nonsensical, but too acceptable compliments. Sally was naturally a
modest girl, and but for Rachel's wicked arts, would not have had
courage to talk with a strange man; but how could she resist her fate,
you know? After a little discourse, she asked him with a trembling
heart, what might be his name.

"Robert Price, at your service," was the answer.

"Robert Price! that is R.P. as sure as I am alive, and the
fortune-teller was a witch. It is all out; it is all out! O the
wonderful art of fortune-tellers!"

The little sleep she had that night was disturbed with dreams of
graves, and ghosts, and funerals; but as they were morning dreams, she
knew those always went by contraries, and that a funeral denoted a
wedding. Still, a sigh would now and then heave, to think that in that
wedding Jacob could have no part. Such of my readers as know the power
which superstition has over the weak and credulous mind, scarcely need
be told, that poor Sally's unhappiness was soon completed. She forgot
all her vows to Jacob; she at once forsook an honest man whom she
loved, and consented to marry a stranger, of whom she knew nothing,
from a ridiculous notion that she was compelled to do so by a decree
which she had it not in her power to resist. She married this Robert
Price, the strange gardener, whom she soon found to be very worthless,
and very much in debt. He had no such thing as "money beyond sea," as
the fortune-teller had told her; but, alas, he had another wife there.
He got immediate possession of Sally's L20. Rachel put in for her
share, but he refused to give her a farthing, and bade her get away,
or he would have her taken u