A CLAIRVOYANT'S PROPHECY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 274, 26 June 1889, Page 3

A CLAIRVOYANT'S PROPHECY.

The neighbourhood, seemed te hare a strange significance, to bf filled with an intangible aroma os the thing he was. seeking. It was one of thoie metropolitan street- . which, acceptable, at one end, deo generate into a Bohemian shadiness at the other. The houses were not old, hut were faded of aspect, as though the various base uses to which they had been put had told upon their butwaird physiognomy. There Tere on? or two undertaken on the block which Malvern traversed with a slower itep and a glance that took more actual cognizance of the appended numbers. Their upright sign) adorned with two white thigh bones and a skull on a sable ground, stood conspicuously forward in the

strip oi'front- yard which separated .some of these bones from the sidewalk. There was no regularity in the sky line prodttced by the "roofs. Some were tall houses, others were short, fc-'ome had 'stoops' others were basements. On every door there was a sign or a plate. ' TenCent: Dinner ' was the legend emblazoned ■' o-a a white placard, and *Dr Campbell, Mesmeric Healer. Avere-th^ words engraven on a neig'ibo Wg door-plate. •■• ' Sooiety Eoom^oi^t^tt^fidbiation of Faith Christs 1 came ; next;' and fiually « Mdnie; ,2elda Buyhl, Clairvoyant.' This |^#b!afe'Malverti was looking for. '&fc? ; '&: ' "•■■••''. .'■•"• Hepiicned in by the. rusty, halfopen kate, walked up a narrow flagging, Said- rang the beW; The door was opened almost rmmediately; girl, who§e"eyes'liiad that look, at once hard and ,pathe,tic, of neyer having been young^ vwhich M^lveria felt to be appropriate to the butrounding conditions. Bhe led him into a long, dim, sha) by *oom," and then disappeared. He sat there for a time watching a Ayatery T eye.d cat pace with steady tread over tHe trivial pattern of the ingrain carpet. Then he became aware of another presence in the room. The robing wbich .enveloped the lady who had entered iftade>^m feel safe in surmising that this was Mdme. Zelda Kuyhl. She seemed to be of above the medium height and she must have been not ony slender bui absolutely thin to have worn without mammoth bulk the abundant folds of dark purple closh, overla7ed with yellow hieroglyphics, whiohwere wound abou« her person. The light was too faint fo- a distinct perception of her features. >he had a great cieal of dull, fair hair massed on top of a slender head. As she motioned 1. alvern to; fallow her. she presented to him the clear lines of an aquiline' profile. , The smaller room in the rear, to whicli she admitted him', was as dim as the one he had left, but his -eyes j had now become more accustomed to the semi-obscurity, and he could see that Mdme. Zelda Euyhl looked at him sharpy before she bade him britfly to be seated. at one side of a sbuttt red window, while she dropped into a chair facing him. ' Have you any special question to ask ?' she said presently. Her voice was full, and her intonations would h<»ve struck him at anothe • time ; they were unlike what he had expected, unlike what, ia the way of tones, would most naturally emanate from the lips of .a Mdme v Zelda Buyhl, clairvoyant, in a purple tdgfc. 1 ' ■with a yellow cabalistic era'broideries. 1 No,' said . Malyern.- • •. Again he WaV conscious of her keen glance upoa him. ' Kindly £ive me some small article of wearing apparel or something you usually carry about you ; your handkerchief, oardr-case, gloves — anything ' „', She extended her hand as she spoke— a firm, long, white hand, with the contours of youth andj strong expression inits lines. Malvem thrust his own hand into his pocket. « Will this do ?' ' Yes,' she replied, shortly. She thrust the handkerchief he had given her in her palms a moment. ' You know,' she continued, glancing across at him. with the keen eyes which nearer opportunities for observation proved to be of considerable depth and lustre, ' that I am not a trance medium or clairvoyant ?' "No; in fact, I don't know the difference. Perhaps I'd better tell you," Malvern went on, "that I don't believe^ in^thjs^aprt ...of thing anyway. ]^e^D v i^iiil|m^s'that hinders." »- -' 4 -- J"lt does not make the smallest difference to me whether you have faith or not. On general principles" —if that had been probable at all Malvern could have funded at this juncture that Mdme. Zelda Buyhl smiled, as it were, ! b§£jjvseri Ber tiSetli/ —•'I believe it ddes affect Ihe success of what you recejye.'' She lie ejeaued • £aok in her chair, and her hands continued their almost mechanical balling and unfolding of the handkerchief they Jtield. „laer, eyes, which seem^|^rl|^ ; ItW coP our of her hair, left her yipitor's face and seemed t^los^ t^ejjnselves in space just abovW Sis head. It came over Malvern that she did not, ply her trade willSfglyj ' ' Respite ■ the extravagant? chai'acter of ncr diess and her professional manner, she had distinctly not the intrinsic quality of the mountebank Malvern could not have said exactly in what his per ception of this consisted. He . felt that she had overcome an interior objection in the first moments she held his handkerchief. He had always been given to peculiar impressions With regard to his fellowbeings. He hai usually seen less through £ glass, darkly, then most people. To be sure, his-fancifulness had jWHsasionly beguiled him into mistakes. But what- had he" to do with;that now? Of all. the things -which, in the swift retrospective glance he oast over the past, rose up before him with an immeasurable sensed fft%Uft th«iiconscibasneaE of his own unresistingi introfpaotiveness was the most fatiauing. , f To D8 4 vuWwiiclcd« x ,tiw'i bio.