“And—­even you are not tall enough to do that, Mr. Bellew!” laughed Anthea, as she rose to bid Old Nannie “Good-night,” while Bellew, unnoticed, slipped certain coins upon a corner of the chimney-piece.  So, old Nannie blessed them, and theirs,—­past, present, and future, thoroughly and completely, with a fine comprehensiveness that only a genuinely accomplished old witch might hope to attain to, and, following them to the door, paused there with one shrivelled, claw-like hand up-lifted towards the sky: 

“At the full o’ the moon, tall sir!” she repeated, “at the full o’ the moon!  As for you, my dark-eyed lady, I say, by force you shall be wooed, and by force ye shall be wed, aye! aye!—­but there is no man strong enough except he have the Tiger-Mark upon him.  Old Nannie knows,—­she’s seen it in the ink, dreamed it in the fire, and read it all in your pretty hand.  And now—­thank ye for the tea, my pretty, and God bless ye for the good weed, and just so sure as you’ve been good, and kind to old Nannie, so shall Fortune be good and kind to you, Miss Anthea.”

“Poor old Nannie!” said Anthea, as they went on down the grassy lane, “she is so very grateful for so little.  And she is such a gentle old creature really, though the country folk do call her a witch and are afraid of her because they say she has the ’evil eye,’—­which is ridiculous, of course!  But nobody ever goes near her, and she is dreadfully lonely, poor old thing!”

“And so that is why you come to sit with her, and let her talk to you?” enquired Bellew, staring up at the moon.

“Yes.”

“And do you believe in her dreams, and visions?”

“No,—­of course not!” answered Anthea, rather hurriedly, and with a deeper colour in her cheeks, though Bellew was still intent upon the moon.  “You don’t either,—­do you?” she enquired, seeing he was silent.

“Well, I don’t quite know,” he answered slowly, “but she is rather a wonderful old lady, I think.”

“Yes, she has wonderful thick hair still,” nodded Anthea, “and she’s not a bit deaf, and her eyes are as clear, and sharp as ever they were.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t meaning her eyes, or her hair, or her hearing.”

“Oh,—­then pray what were you pleased to mean?”

“Did you happen to notice what she said about a—­er—­Man with, a—­Tiger-Mark?” enquired Bellew, still gazing up at the moon.

Anthea laughed: 

“The Man with the Tiger-Mark,—­of course! he has been much in her dreams, lately, and she has talked of him a great deal,—­”

“Has she?” said Bellew, “ha!”

“Yes,—­her mind is full of strange twists, and fancies,—­you see she is so very old,—­and she loves to tell me her dreams, and read the future for me.”

“Though, of course, you don’t believe it,” said Bellew.

“Believe it!” Anthea repeated, and walked some dozen paces, or so, before she answered,—­“no, of course not.”