It must not be supposed that my imagination dealt with me as I am now dealing with the reader.  I was full of strange fancies and wild superstitions.  One of my Catholic friends gave me a silver medal which had been blessed by the Pope, and which I was to wear next my body.  I was told that this would turn black after a time, in virtue of a power which it possessed of drawing out original sin, or certain portions of it, together with the evil and morbid tendencies which had been engrafted on the corrupt nature.  I wore the medal faithfully, as directed, and watched it carefully.  It became tarnished and after a time darkened, but it wrought no change in my unnatural condition.

There was an old gypsy who had the reputation of knowing more of futurity than she had any right to know.  The story was that she had foretold the assassination of Count Rossi and the death of Cavour.

However that may have been, I was persuaded to let her try her black art upon my future.  I shall never forget the strange, wild look of the wrinkled hag as she took my hand and studied its lines and fixed her wicked old eyes on my young countenance.  After this examination she shook her head and muttered some words, which as nearly as I could get them would be in English like these: 

   Fair lady cast a spell on thee,
   Fair lady’s hand shall set thee free.

Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment.  The extraordinary nature of the affliction to which I was subject disposed me to believe the incredible with reference to all that relates to it.  I have never ceased to have the feeling that, sooner or later, I should find myself freed from the blight laid upon me in my infancy.  It seems as if it would naturally come through the influence of some young and fair woman, to whom that merciful errand should be assigned by the Providence that governs our destiny.  With strange hopes, with trembling fears, with mingled belief and doubt, wherever I have found myself I have sought with longing yet half-averted eyes for the “elect lady,” as I have learned to call her, who was to lift the curse from my ruined life.

Three times I have been led to the hope, if not the belief, that I had found the object of my superstitious belief.—­Singularly enough it was always on the water that the phantom of my hope appeared before my bewildered vision.  Once it was an English girl who was a fellow passenger with me in one of my ocean voyages.  I need not say that she was beautiful, for she was my dream realized.  I heard her singing, I saw her walking the deck on some of the fair days when sea-sickness was forgotten.  The passengers were a social company enough, but I had kept myself apart, as was my wont.  At last the attraction became too strong to resist any longer.