's face brightened as she clutched it eagerly.

"Come, now let's hear," continued the young man, "what's to be Mr.
Lawrence Hardin's destiny."

"May be, if you saw all I see in this cup, you would not be so eager to
know its contents," said the crone in a boding voice.

"What! Whew, old woman! croaking of evil when I've twice crossed your
palm with silver! This is too bad."

"But don't you know the decrees of fate are unalterable?" said the
woman, solemnly.

"O, law, yes! but I didn't know an old cracked saucer was so
formidable."

"It is no saucer, sir; it is a cup, and your destiny is in it."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other young man; "pretty well wound up,
Hardin, if your destiny is contained in a teacup."

"Hush!" exclaimed the crone in an angry tone. "More than his or yours,
you noisy chatterer! The whole world's, I may say, is in the cup."

"In the _pot_, you mean," said the youth, knocking with his bamboo
stick on the side of a small, black teapot, that stood at the old
woman's right hand.

"Well, yes; in the pot, I should say, perhaps," added she in a softened
tone.

"The world's destiny is in a teapot, and Aunt Patty Belcher pours it
forth at her pleasure; that's it;" and here they all joined in a hearty
laugh.

"That will do," said Hardin at length; "now read off, good Dame Belcher.
Sumpter is digesting his fortune. Give me a more palatable one than
his."

The old woman rubbed her long, peaked nose violently, and then raising
her eyes slowly to the young man's face, said, "Thou art ambitious,
Lawrence Hardin!"

"Wrong there, most reverend sorceress!" exclaimed the one called
Sumpter.

"Now, hark ye!" exclaimed the old crone; "I won't be interrupted. I
guess I know my own cups."

"Be quiet, be quiet, Jack!" said Hardin. "Why will you be so
presumptuous as to gainsay a prophet's assertions! Go on, Aunt Patty; he
will not disturb you again."

"Well, I tell you again," said the woman, casting a disdainful glance on
Sumpter, who had withdrawn to a chair at the foot of the cot-bed, and
was regarding attentively the tiny form lying there wrapped in tranquil
sleep, "I tell you _again_, you are ambitious. You want to be thought
great. You want to be first. You thirst for power for the sake of bowing
others to your will. You have rich parents _now_, and are surrounded by
all that heart could wish; but, mind ye, there's a dark cloud in the
rear. It threatens tempest and desolation. Soon your pare