"Yes, ma'am--but she looks such a tinkler."
"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding."
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full
flow once more.
"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes
to know who will be her first visitor."
"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies
go," said Colonel Dent.
"Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."
Sam went and returned.
"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble
themselves to come near her; nor," he added, with difficulty
suppressing a titter, "any ladies either, except the young, and
single."
"By Jove, she has taste!" exclaimed Henry Lynn.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly: "I go first," she said, in a tone which
might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach
in the van of his men.
"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause--reflect!" was her mama's cry;
but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door
which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it "le cas" to
wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she
felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton
tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the
library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the
arch.
Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her
with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of
rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she
walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.
"What did she say, sister?" asked Mary.
"What did you think? How do you feel?--Is she a real fortune-
teller?" demanded the Misses Eshton.
"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me.
Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you
seem, by the importance of you all--my good mama included--ascribe
to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the
house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen
a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science
of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is
gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in
the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened."