“Robert Price, at your service,” was the answer.

“Robert Price! that is R.P. as sure as I am alive, and the fortune-teller was a witch.  It is all out; it is all out!  O the wonderful art of fortune-tellers!”

The little sleep she had that night was disturbed with dreams of graves, and ghosts, and funerals; but as they were morning dreams, she knew those always went by contraries, and that a funeral denoted a wedding.  Still, a sigh would now and then heave, to think that in that wedding Jacob could have no part.  Such of my readers as know the power which superstition has over the weak and credulous mind, scarcely need be told, that poor Sally’s unhappiness was soon completed.  She forgot all her vows to Jacob; she at once forsook an honest man whom she loved, and consented to marry a stranger, of whom she knew nothing, from a ridiculous notion that she was compelled to do so by a decree which she had it not in her power to resist.  She married this Robert Price, the strange gardener, whom she soon found to be very worthless, and very much in debt.  He had no such thing as “money beyond sea,” as the fortune-teller had told her; but, alas, he had another wife there.  He got immediate possession of Sally’s L20.  Rachel put in for her share, but he refused to give her a farthing, and bade her get away, or he would have her taken up on the vagrant act.  He soon ran away from Sally, leaving her to bewail her own weakness; for it was that indeed, and not any irresistible fate, which had been the cause of her ruin.  To complete the misery, she herself was suspected of having stolen the silver cup which Rachel had pocketed.  Her master, however, would not prosecute her, as she was falling into a deep decline, and she died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad warning to all credulous girls.

* * * * *

Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of fortune-telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket.  Mr. Wilson, the clergyman, found her one day dealing out some very wicked ballads to some children.  He went up with a view to give her a reprimand; but had no sooner begun his exhortation than up came a constable, followed by several people.

“There she is, that is she, that is the old witch who tricked my wife out of the five guineas,” said one of them.  “Do your office, constable; seize the old hag.  She may tell fortunes and find pots of gold in Taunton jail, for there she will have nothing else to do.”

This was that very farmer Jenkins, whose wife had been cheated by Rachel of the five guineas.  He had taken pains to trace her to her own parish:  he did not so much value the loss of the money, but he thought it was a duty he owed the public to clear the country of such vermin.  Mr. Wilson immediately committed her.  She took her trial at the next assizes, when she was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.