man that axes me, but the third man that axes me, him I can
safely marry. This tea leaf stands for the third man. I'm to have three
sons and one daughter, and my luck will come to me through running water
when the weather-vane points west."

Kitty pointed to several pencil scratches beside the tea leaf, intended
to signify a brook and a weather-vane on a steeple.

"What did she say about Betty?" asked Gay.

Kitty studied the next line of hieroglyphics a moment. "Oh, I see now. I
intended this for a ship. She said there was a veil done hanging ovah
her future, so she couldn't rightly tell, but she could see ships coming
and going and crowds of people, and she could see that her fortune was
mixed up with a great many other persons. She said that the teacup held
gold for her, and the signs all 'pinted friendly.'"

"And Lloyd?" queried Gay, trying to decipher the next line of pencil
marks. "Surely that's not a cat I see."

"A cat, a teapot, and a ball of knitting," laughed Kitty. "I supposed
that Lloyd's fortune would be something thrilling, but according to the
old darky, it's to be the tamest of all. She said, 'I see a rising sun,
and a row of lovahs, but I don't see you a-taking any of 'em, honey. Yo'
ways am ways of pleasantness and all yo' paths am peace, but I'se
powahful skeered dat you'se gwine to be an ole maid. I sholy is.'"

"Is that so, Lloyd?" asked Gay, leaning over Kitty's shoulder to laugh
at the Little Colonel's teased expression. Kitty answered for her.

"Not if we can help it. We want her for a cousin, and we think that she
ought to marry Malcolm just for the sake of being able to claim us as
her dear relations. Look how she's blushing, girls."

"I'm not!" was the indignant answer. "You're just trying to make me get
red, because you know I do it so easily."

She turned the page hastily and began to talk about its contents to
change the subject. There were scraps of ribbon, as they went farther
on, a burnt match, a peacock feather, a tiny block of wood with a hole
shot through it, a strand of embroidery silk, a faded pansy,--a hundred
bits of worthless rubbish which an unknowing hand would have swept into
the waste-basket; but to Kitty each one was a key to unlock some happy
memory of her swiftly passing school-days. As the four heads, brown and
golden, black and auburn, bent over the book, the rain beat against the
windows in torrents.

With needle in air, Allison sat a moment watching the water