“Don’t be alarmed my purty creature,” spoke the prophet; “don’t be alarmed at what I’m goin’ to say to you, an’ about you, for you needn’t.  I see great good fortune before you.  I see a grand an’ handsome husband at your side, and a fine house to live in.  I see stairs, an’ carpets, an’ horses, an’ hounds, an’ yourself, with jewels in your white little ears, an’ silks, an’ satins on your purty figure.  That’s a wakin’ dhrame I had, an’ you may all mark my words, if it doesn’t come out thrue; it’s on the leaf, an’ the leaf was open to me.  Grandeur an’ wealth is before her, for her beauty an’ her! goodness will bring it all about, an’ so I read it.”

“An’ what about the husband himself?” asked the mother, whose affections caused! her to feel a strong interest in anything that might concern the future interest of her daughter; “can you tell us nothing about his appearance, that we might give a guess at him?”

“No,” replied M’Gowan, for such was the prophet’s name, “not to you; to none but herself can I give the marks an’ tokens that will enable her to know the man that is to be her husband when she sees him; and to herself, in the mornin’, I will, before I go that is if she’ll allow me—­for what is written in the dark book ought to be read and expounded.  Her beauty an’ her goodness will do it all!”

The man’s words were uttered m a voice so replete with those soft and insinuating tones that so powerfully operate upon the female heart; they breathed, too such an earnest spirit of good will, joined to an evident admiration of the beauty and goodness he alluded to, that the innocent girl, not-withstanding her previous aversion, felt something like gratification at what he said, not on account ol the prospects held out to her, but because of the singular charm and affectionate spirit which breathed in his voice; or, might it not have been that delicate influence of successful flattery which so gently pervades the heart of woman, and soothes that vanity which unconsciously lurks in the very purest and most innocent of the sex?  So far from being flattered by his predictions, she experienced a strong sensation of disappointment, because she knew where her affections at that moment rested, and felt persuaded that if she were destined to enjoy the grandeur shadowed out for her, it never could be with him whom she then loved.  Notwithstanding all this, she felt her repugnance against the prophet strongly counterbalanced by the strange influence he began to exercise over her; and with this impression she and they passed to the kitchen, where in a few minutes she was engaged in preparing food for him, with a degree of good feeling that surprised herself.