Rachel undertook the business.  She set off to the farm-house, and fell to singing one of her most enticing songs just under the dairy window.  Sally was so struck with the pretty tune, which was unhappily used, as is too often the case, to set off some very loose words, that she jumped up, dropped the skimming dish into the cream, and ran out to buy the song.

While she stooped down to rummage the basket for those songs which had the most tragical pictures—­for Sally had a most tender heart, and delighted in whatever was mournful—­Rachel looked steadfastly in her face, and told her she knew by her art that she was born to good fortune, but advised her not to throw herself away.  “These two moles on your cheek,” added she, “show you are in some danger.”

“Do they denote husbands or children?” cried Sally, starting up, and letting fall the song of the Children in the Wood.

“Husbands,” muttered Rachel.

“Alas, poor Jacob,” said Sally mournfully; “then he will die first, wont he?”

“Mum for that,” quoth the fortune-teller; “I will say no more.”

Sally was impatient, but the more curiosity she discovered, the more mystery Rachel affected.  At last she said, “If you will cross my hand with a piece of silver, I will tell you your fortune.  By the power of my art, I can do this three ways:  by cards, by the lines of your hand, or by turning a cup of tea-grounds; which will you have?”

“O, all, all,” cried Sally, looking up with reverence to this sunburnt oracle of wisdom, who knew no less than three different ways of diving into the secrets of futurity.  Alas, persons of better sense than Sally have been so taken in; the more is the pity.

The poor girl said she would run up stairs to her little box, where she kept her money tied up in a bit of an old glove, and would bring down a bright queen Anne’s sixpence very crooked.  “I am sure,” added she, “it is a lucky one, for it cured me of a very bad ague last spring, by only laying it nine nights under my pillow, without speaking a word.  But then you must know what gave virtue to this sixpence was, that it had belonged to three young men of the name of John; I am sure I had work enough to get it.  But true it is, it certainly cured me.  It must be the sixpence you know, for I am sure I did nothing else for my ague, except indeed taking some bitter stuff every three hours, which the doctor called bark.  To be sure, I lost my ague soon after I took it, but I am certain it was owing to the crooked sixpence, and not to the bark.  And so, good woman, you may come in if you will, for there is not a soul in the house but me.”  This was the very thing Rachel wanted to know, and very glad she was to learn it.

While Sally was above stairs untying her glove, Rachel slipped into the parlor, took a small silver cup from the beaufet, and clapped it into her pocket.  Sally ran down lamenting that she had lost her sixpence, which she verily believed was owing to her having put it into a left glove, instead of a right one.  Rachel comforted her by saying, that “if she gave her two plain ones instead, the charm would work just as well.”