That means your
home, dearie--the spirits don't lie, even when they're manifestin'
themselves just through cards. They guide your hand when you shuffle
and cut. Your wish is about the affections, ain't it, dearie?"

The pretty slattern across the table nodded. She had put down her
dust-pan and leaned her broom across her knees when she sat down to
receive the only tip which Rosalie Le Grange, in the existing state of
her finances, could give.

"I got your wish now, dearie," announced Rosalie Le Grange. "The
spirits sometimes help the cards somethin' wonderful. Here it comes. I
thought so. The three of hearts for gladness an' rejoicin' right next
to the ace, which is your home. Now that might mean a little home of
your own, but the influence I git with it is so weak I don't think it
means anythin' as strong an' big as that. Wait a minute--now it comes
straight an' definite--he'll call--rejoicin' at your home because he'll
call. Do you understand that, dearie?"

"Sure!" Hattie's eyes were big with awe.

"Hat-tie!" came a raucous voice from outside.

"Yes-m!" answered Hattie.

"Are you going to be all day redding up them rooms?" pursued the voice.

"Nearly through!" responded Hattie. Rosalie Le Grange made pantomime of
sweeping; and--

"I'll help you red up, my dear," she whispered. Forthwith, they fell to
sweeping, dusting, shaking sheets.

As she moved about the squeezed little furnished rooms and alcove,
which formed her residence and professional offices in these reduced
days, Rosalie Le Grange appeared the one thing within its walls which
was not common and dingy. A pink wrapper, morning costume of her craft,
enclosed a figure grown thick with forty-five, but marvelously
well-shaped and controlled. Her wrapper was as neat as her figure; even
the lace at the throat was clean. Her long, fair hands, on which the
first approach of age appeared as dimples, not as wrinkles or
corrugations of the flesh, ran to nails whose polish proved daily care.
Her hair, chestnut in the beginning, foamed with white threads. Below
was a face which hardly needed, as yet, the morning dab of powder, so
craftily had middle age faded the skin without deadening it. Except for
a pair of large, gray, long-lashed eyes--too crafty in their corner
glances, too far looking in their direct vision--that skin bounded and
enclosed nothing which was not attractive and engaging. Her chin was
piquantly pointed. Beside a tender, humorous, mobile m