“Oh, I know you well,” interrupts the old man, “your beauty has made you known.  What more would you have?”

“Something that will make me happy.  Old man, I am unhappy.  Tell me, if you have the power, who I am.  Am I an orphan, as has been told me; or have I parents yet living, affluent, and high in society?  Do they seek me and cannot find me?  Oh! let the fates speak, old man, for this world has given me nothing but pain and shame.  Am I—­” she pauses, her eyes wander to the floor, her cheeks crimson, she seizes the old man by the hand, and her bosom heaves as if a fierce passion had just been kindled within it.

The old man preserves his equanimity, says he has a fortune to tell her.  Fortunes are best told at midnight.  The stars, too, let out their secrets more willingly when the night-king rules.  He bids her follow him, and totters back to the little parlor.  With a wise air, he bids her be seated on the sofa, saying he never mistakes maidens when they call at this hour.

Maria, who rose from the table at the entrance of the stranger, bows, shuts her book mechanically, and retires.  Can there be another face so lovely? she questions within herself, as she pauses to contemplate the stranger ere she disappears.  The antiquary draws a chair and seats himself beside Anna.  “Thy life and destiny,” he says, fretting his bony fingers over the crown of his wig.  “Blessed is the will of providence that permits us to know the secrets of destiny.  Give me your hand, fair lady.”  Like a philosopher in deep study, he wipes and adjusts his spectacles, then takes her right hand and commences reading its lines.  “Your history is an uncommon one—­”

“Yes,” interrupts the girl, “mine has been a chequered life.”

“You have seen sorrow enough, but will see more.  You come of good parents; but, ah!—­there is a mystery shrouding your birth.” ("And that mystery,” interposes the girl, “I want to have explained.”) “There will come a woman to reclaim you-a woman in high life; but she will come too late—­” (The girl pales and trembles.) “Yes,” pursues the old man, looking more studiously at her hand, “she will come too late.”  You will have admirers, and even suitors; but they will only betray you, and in the end you will die of trouble.  Ah! there is a line that had escaped me.  You may avert this dark destiny-yes, you may escape the end that fate has ordained for you.  In neglect you came up, the companion of a man you think true to you.  But he is not true to you.  Watch him, follow him-you will yet find him out.  Ha! ha! ha! these men are not to be trusted, my dear.  There is but one man who really loves you.  He is an old man, a man of station.  He is your only true friend.  I here see it marked.”  He crosses her hand, and says there can be no mistaking it.  “With that man, fair girl, you may escape the dark destiny.  But, above all things, do not treat him coldly.  And here I see by the sign that Anna Bonard is not your name.  The name was given you by a wizard.”