then stretched out her hand over the gate. The woman was dirty, and too free in her speech to please the little lady, who was used to being treated to low curtsies and deepest respect by her father's tenants; but then there was a taste of excitement about the fortune-telling, and Meg was half superstitious and half amused.

Her hand looked very white and delicate in the tramp's grimy fingers. The woman glanced from it to the girl's fair face, and began to prophesy with an earnestness and apparent belief in her own words, which were perhaps not wholly simulated. The blue veins stood out too clearly, and the lines on Meg's palm were deeply cut.

"You've more than one lover already," said the prophetess. "But your heart's not touched yet. There's a dark man who is set on having you, but you'll only bring him ill-luck. There's a woman who hates you because she's jealous. Take care, or she'll do you a mischief. There's a great change coming in your life soon—and——" But Meg snatched her hand away and stood ashamed. The preacher of the beach was coming up the hill.

She stepped back into the shadow in order that he might go by without seeing her: she did not care to be caught having her fortune told like a silly servant girl. She knew of no reason in the world why he should stop at the Ravenshill gate; and yet an absolute certainty that he would so stop, and that he would speak to her, came over her. Perhaps it was because he was walking with an evident purpose, looking neither to the right nor left; but she was hardly surprised, only slightly dismayed, as at a fulfilled presentiment, when the man turned as she expected, and came straight towards her.

His hand was on the latch before he saw Meg; then he went to the point without any preamble.

"I've come to bring you this," he said. "Will ye take it? It's yours by rights."

He was not in the least astonished, as Meg observed, at finding her there. Barnabas Thorpe possibly did not know how seldom Miss Deane was out at five in the morning; besides, it took a good deal to move him to wonder. "The Lord had led her," he supposed, which was sufficient explanation for anything.

Meg was rather awe-struck. She felt as if it were highly probable that this miraculously gifted preacher, who looked like a fisherman, but spoke with the authority of inspiration, might deliver some supernatural sign into her keeping. He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket; it was rolled into a tight ball, and he handed it to her without more ado. She 

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