y of them," answered Cherry, still speaking in a very
low and rapid whisper. "But breathe not a word at home, for father
says they be surely in league with the devil, if they be not
impostors who deserve whipping at the cart's tail. But Rachel went
to one three years back, and the dame told her a husband would come
wooing within three short months, and told the colour of his hair
and his eyes. And sure enough it all came true, and now she is
quickly to be wed. And others have done the like, and the things
have all come true. And she is not a wicked woman neither, for she
cures agues and fevers, and the leeches themselves ask her simples
of her. There may be wicked women plying this trade too; I know not
how that may be. But this dame is not wicked; Rachel goes to her
still, and she has never deceived her yet. But she liveth very
secretly now, as a wise woman must needs to in these times; for the
King, they say, is very wroth against all such, and in the country
men are going about from him and burning all who practise such
arts, and otherwise cruelly maltreating them. So no man speaks
openly of them now, though they still ply their trade in secret."

"Hast thou ever been to one thyself, Cherry?"

Her face was all in a glow. She clung closer to Cuthbert's arm.

"Chide me not, and tell not my father; but I went with Rachel once,
when she went to have a wart charmed that was causing her much
vexation. I asked nothing of the dame myself; but she took my hand
and looked into my eyes, and she nodded her head and chuckled and
made strange marks upon a bit of paper, which she said was casting
my horoscope. And then she told me that I had an ugly lover that I
loved not, but that another more gently born should come in time,
and that we should love each other well and be faithful through
all, and that I should end by being a lady with all I wanted at
command."

And there Cherry stopped, blushing and palpitating with happiness
and shy joy; whilst Cuthbert, struck by this very remarkable and
original specimen of fortune telling, began to think he might do
worse than consult this same wise woman who had gauged his
sweetheart's case so fairly.

He himself had no scruples. He had a strong belief in necromancy,
and had never heard that there was sin in its practice. He was
still Romanist enough at heart to look upon the confessional as an
easy and pleasant way of getting rid of the burden of an uneasy
conscience. His mind was ve