A Colonial Wooing
the outermost corners of the sitting-room, were aglow, reflecting the forked tongues of flame that leaped from the hickory logs piled upon the andirons. There had been game after game, from sunset until now, an hour after supper, when fortune-telling had been proposed, and Ruth was to personate a gypsy queen. No one could do it better. She knew the whims and fancies of the young folks present, and made all happy by her witty suggestions of each applicant's future. Then, when there was little left to be said, she remarked, "But nobody has told me mine!"
"Let me do so," suggested Robert Pearson; and, taking his stand near Ruth, said, looking at the palm of her extended hand,—
"An excellent fortune shall be thine,
But not from across the sea.
It awaits thee now, if I read the sign,
My pretty Quaker fairie."
All laughed heartily, except Ruth. Her cousin's conversation before they had entered the house recurred to her, and what could he mean by hinting of the letter now? This
125
