“God save your honor,” said Molly, as she approached him and dropped a courtesy.

“Ah, Molly,” said he, “you can see into the future, they say.  Well, come now, tell me my fortune; but they say one must cross your palm with silver before you can manage the fates; here’s a shilling for you, and let us hear what you have to say.”

“No, sir,” replied Molly, putting back his hand, “imposthors may do that, because they secure themselves first and tell you nothing worth knowin’ afterwards.  I take no money till I first tell the fortune.”

“Well, Molly, that’s honest at all events; let me hear what you have to tell me.”

“Show me your hand, sir,” said she, and taking it, she looked into it with a solemn aspect.  “There, sir,” she said, “that will do.  I am sorry I met you this evening.”

“Why so, Molly?”

“Because I read in your hand a great deal of sorrow.”

“Pooh, you foolish woman—­nonsense!”

“There’s a misfortune likely to happen to one of your family; but I think it may be prevented.”

“How will it be prevented?”

“By a gentleman that has a title and great wealth, and that loves the member of your family that the misfortune is likely to happen to.”

The squire paused and looked at the woman, who seemed to speak seriously, and even with pain.

“I don’t believe a word of it, Molly; but granting that it be true, how do you know it?”

“That’s more than I can tell myself, sir,” she replied.  “A feelin’ comes over me, and I can’t help speakin’ the words as they rise to my lips.”

“Well, Molly, here’s a shilling for you now; but I want you to see my daughter’s hand till I hear what you have to say for her.  Are you a Papist, Molly?”

“No, your honor, I was one wanst; but the moment we take to this way of life we mustn’t belong to any religion, otherwise we couldn’t tell the future.”

“Sell yourself to the devil, eh?”

“Oh, no, sir; but—­”

“But what?  Out with it.”

“I can’t, sir; if I did, I never could tell a fortune agin.”

“Well—­well; come up; I have taken a fancy that you shall tell my daughter’s for all that.”

“Surely there can be nothing but happiness before her, sir; she that is so good to the poor and distressed; she that has all the world admirin’ her wonderful beauty.  Sure, they say, her health was drunk in the Lord Lieutenant’s house in the great Castle of Dublin, as the Lily of the Plains of Boyle and the Star of Ireland.”

“And so it was, Molly, and so it was; there’s another shilling for you.  Come now, come up to the house, and tell her fortune; and mark me, Molly, no flattery now—­nothing but the truth, if you know it.”

“Did I flatter you, sir?”

“Upon my honor, any thing but that, Molly; and all I ask is that you won’t flatter her.  Speak the truth, as I said before, if you know it.”