ink
pretty nearly everything occult has been tried here lately, except
just one. We've not had any crystal gazing."

"How d'you do that?"

"Don't you remember that chapter in _Zilla, the Sahara Queen_? How she
goes to the Coptic magician, and he pours some ink into a little boy's
hand, and sees all her future in it?"

"Ink would stain horribly," commented Ardiune.

"Yes, I don't mean to use ink. What I want is a crystal. There's
something on Gibbie's chimney-piece that would do jolly well. I
believe I'll borrow it! I know just how to manage, because Mabel and
Sylvia went to consult a psychist in Bond Street, and they told me all
about it, and everything she said and did. As a matter of fact she
described Mabel's fiance quite wrong, and pretended she saw him
sitting in a dug-out, while all the time he was on a battleship; but
they thought it great fun, because they hadn't really intended to
believe her."

"Would the girls believe you?"

"Certainly not as Raymonde Armitage. I don't mean them to know me.
We're going to disguise ourselves, so that our very mothers wouldn't
own us."

"Whew!"

Ardiune looked decidedly sceptical.

"Wait till I've done telling you before you pull faces, you old
bluebottle! Can't you trust me by now to get up a decent rag? Yes, I'm
offended! All right, I'll accept apologies. Now if you're really
listening, I'll explain. You know the gipsies are camping down by the
river. Everybody in the school has noticed their caravans, and
realizes they're there. Now what's more natural than for a couple of
these gipsies to stroll round by the barn some evening during
recreation time, and offer to predict the future? Katherine and Ave
could be in the secret, have their fortunes told first, and then bring
others. We'd install ourselves in the old cow-house; it's so dark, no
one would see us very plainly."

"Ray, you've enough imagination for a novelist!" murmured Ardiune
admiringly.

Having settled their plan of campaign, the next step was to carry out
details. The question of costume loomed largest.

"We must look real gipsies, not stage ones," decreed Raymonde. "The
thing's got to be done properly, if it's done at all."

They ransacked the property box used for school theatricals, and
having selected some likely garments, set to work on an ideal of
realism. Two skirts were carefully torn on nails, artistically stained
with rust and mud, and rubbed on the barn floor to give them an extra
t