THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTERS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2009, 23 May 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTERS.

By Mrs. HENRY WOOD. + The Author of'KmtLynne," in the " Argoiy."

(CONTINUED.)

•' To-morrow I" echoed Mrs. Juniper, tp~ provmgly ; " hadn't you bettor start to-night? You children have about as much brains as thought — and your papa no more either, in Homo things. Who is to g'-t up a picnio at an hour's notice ? There's the oompany to bo invited, and got together, and there's the eatables. We shall want cold fowl, and tongue, and ahmodo beef ; and some of you perhaps will be calling oat for fruit tartlet*. How can you have all this if you don t give time to cook and prepare it ?" Mm. Jumper's remonstrance was unanswerable ; co one of the girls dismally proposed the day after. •' That's as bad," corrected Mrs. Juniper. " Nobody goes pionicing on a Saturday." Finally, Monday was fixed upon. But Florence was wondering whether she could gain her father's consent. Just at this period, Woroestcr was indulging surprise at a matter which wai not in the common run of events. Borne two or three weeks before a stranger had alighted in the town, had taken a lodging, and had oaused it to be circulated in privacy and seoreoy that he told fortunes. The surprise arose not from the simple action of his Retting up as a fortune-teller, for that was nothing extraordinary, but the fact that sundry predictions, spoken by thid man to different people, were fulfilled in, to suy the leajl of it, un unaccountable manner. Several of his visitors declared, with their eyes dilating and their hair standing on end near the bump of marvel, that ho had bold them things which nobody ever know, or ever could know, save themselves and Heaven. A scanty few of oredulous peoplo went to him first : what they said sent others, and the man's fame grew. He was called the Wizard, and he was never known in Worcester by any other name. It is no fictitious story that I am relating, though but few people oan be left now in Worcester who remember it. The better class of people went to him in secret and would not have have oonfesHed to it for the world ; some of them went in disguise. The man and his curious power had Uffiomo an dtagrossing theme in the town ; Mr. Juniper laughingly talked of it, and Mr. Juniper's daughters were wild to test it. It was this which the girls wanted to confide to Florence: that they had made up their minds, after some qualms of consoionoe, to consult the Wi/.ard. To i ovor, two of them drew her into their own parlor ; Cicelj and Kate : and they asked her if she would not like to aooompany them. " Are you all going? " onqtiired Florence. " Not at onoo : the numbor might betray us, for wbtfre's there suoh a family of grownup girls as ours?" repliod Cicely. "I and and Georgy think of going first, and the other three some later night. Won't you come with us ? " "Not I," laughed Florenoe, "I have no faith. Wizards are olaver men, I suppose ; this one especially must be ; but " "It will be such fun," urged Cicely. "We are dying to go. They say the most extraordinary things of him." " What if you get found out ? If your papa hoars of it ?" " How can he hear ?" broke in Kate. "We shall take every preoaution : woar our shabbiest cotton frocks and garden shawls. The maids are going to lend us muslin caps to put on under our old oottage bonnets, so that we may pass for servant girls. Why, if papa— or mnrnma, and she's sharper— were to meet tin in the street they could not reoognisu us." I "I know it will bo great fun; and if I thought it would not be found out " muded Florenoe. " When do you go, Cioely?" " We have Axed on Saturday night ;* the common people are then ooonpiod, and there will be leiie chance of our meeting any one at

kho Wizard's. Mamma won't mim us; -.ye iball soon be lLoro and back; find tho othen* have promised to Htay with her all the time. If sho a»ka anything, they are going to say we arc up-ptairs, brushing each other's hair* Do oome, Florenoe." , " I don't believe in it," returned the young lady, wnvenngly. " Why, they say ha will describe one's future husband," exclaimed Cicely, " and ho accurately that if you were not to meet with him for years to come, you could not fail instantly to recognise htm." A quick, burning colour dyed the face of Florence Erikine. If the wine man could indeed do thin, she should know whether ahe was destined for de Courcy, and her doubts and her fears would be set at rest. And yot, the next moment, Hhe laughed at the absurdity of her thoughts. " Perhaps I will go," Hhe said to Cicely. " Cone in to tea on Saturday evening and we will steal away afterwards. You will not have a bettor opportunity. And remember, Florence, it in no such weighty matter after all, and if it does no good— if we don't hear anything worthy of belief, I mean— it oan do no narm." " I will go with you ; but mind, C have no superstition about me," exclaimed Florenoe, looking Ruddenly up. " I never had faith in thone things, and never shall have. If I had faith, or any superstition, I should stay away." Ciooly laughed. " That is what everybody says." " For when I was a child," proceeded Florence, speaking as if she were in a reverie, " • woman who pretended to the gift of reading the future, as thin man now pretends, foretold that if ever I should have my ' fate oast,' I shouli bo at the end of my lift." Kate gave a subdued scream. " Then for the love of heaven Btay away from him 1" she exclaimed. " Don't be silly, Kate," said Florenoe, lightly. "Do you believe that such power, pertaining only to the Most High, oan be given to mortal man ?" Kate considered. Cioely shook her head. "It may be given for a purpose at timeH," Giocly said, gravely. "We cannot know. Either all these ' Wise Men' are impostors, or none are ; understand, lam speaking only of thoso wonderful soothsayer* who are heard of perhaps but onoe in a century. If this atrange man, astrologer, or whatever he may oall himself, who has set himself down in Worcester, no one knowing ' whence he oometh, or whither he goeth,' Lite the wind — if it is given to him to discern and foretell the future, it may have been also given to her, who prophesied, you say, of your fate when you were a child. Do not 30, Florenoe." " And we are living in enlightened times, aud you think it necessary to give me this advice gravely?" exclaimed Florence, her lips curling with scorn. " Ob, Cicely 1 " " But if you are bo mookingly inoredulous, why go at all ?" persisted Cioely. " You will not behove anything he may tell you." " Surely you do not suppose I go to have my fortune told ?" retorted Miss Erskine. " Nonsense, Cicely 1 If Igo at all, it will be for the tun of the thing ; and to hear how far your credulity will allow him to dupe you and Geor^iana.' Cicely looked at her. " I don't think you are quite so sceptical as you wish to make out, Florence." " Indeed I am." On tho following day, Friday, Florence proffered the request to her father— that she might be allowed to acootnpany the party to Malvern. It is eight miles from Worcester by road. Captain Erskine chanced to be in a good humor, with himself and everybody about him, for Mr. Stanton had distinctly intimated to him that he wai substantially remembered in his will, and the Captain foresaw an end to his pinching poverty. So he hesitated in his reply : had it not been for hm exuberance of npirita he would have denied her at once. " Who is going ?" he enquired. "Mrs. Juniper and tho young ladieu," replied Florence, not daring to intimate that any Btrangors were to bs invited. " Mr. Juniper will ride over in the afternoon, if he has time." " Juniper's carriage will not hold them all," cried Gentleman Erukine. "Who ujo drive it ?" " Tho groom will drive, I suppose : and they are going to havo a pout-oarriage from the Crown," answered Florrnoe. "It in two years uinoo I went to Malvern, papa." " But tho going with these Junipers, Florence 1 I don't like that." " I do not know anyone else to go with," ■he timidly observed. " Well, Florenoe," he reluotantly oonoeded, " for this one* you raay t join them. But I do insist upon it that afterwards you set yourself resolutely to break up by degrees the intimacy. The girls may be pleasant and sociable, and all that, but they are beneath you. I am going out myself fur a few boura on Monday," he concluded, pompously. Gentleman Erskine wan going fishing. It was an amusement he delighted in. Sometimes he would be aeen with his rod aod banket, bearing off towards the Wear, at Powick ; sometimes in the direction of Bransford; sometimes in a totally opposite route. And (here, arrived at tho stream, he would sit with exemplary patience for hours, in breathless ailenoe, staring at the float, his line in the water, a worm at one end, and a— what is it ?— at the other, waiting for the fish to bite ; his brain filled all the time with the greatness of the grandeur of all the Erskines. It was getting towards sunsot on Saturday evening, when three figures, attired in ootton dresses and faded shawls, and plain btraw bonnets with huge muslin borders underneath them, in short, looking like decent servantgirls, stole out of Surgeon Juniper's house, and walked quickly along the street, turning their heads from the gaze of the passers-by. The young ladies would fain have waited for twilight, but had not dared to make it so late. Fortune seemed to have favored them, for an old friend of Mrs. Juniper's had dropped in to spend the evening with her, and she never gave a thought to what the girls might be about ; whilst Mr. Juniper and de Oouroy were gone to some famous medical leoture that was being given that evening in the town. They bent their steps in the direotion of Lowosmoor, in an obscure part of which neighborhood sojourned the Wizard. " There's the house," oxolaimed Cioely in a whisper, pointing to one of four low ones in a row, with green shutters and narrow doorways. " I and Julia were walking by it with papa last Sunday, and he laughingly showed it to us ; little thinking we nhould ever make use of his information." Ah Cioely spoke, they halted beforo tho door, hesitating and deliberating, half fearful, now it was so near, of going on with the adventure. " You knook, Georgy," continued Cioely. " Knook yourself," retorted Goorgy. " You have the use of your hands." " Shall we go back ? " asked Florenoe, some impulse prompting her. " Why, if we go baok," argued Cicely, " they will laugh at us no dreadfully. Unless we say he had such a lot of people with him be could not soe uh. Are you afraid ? " " I afraid," retorted Florence, disdainfully. " But we had better do one thing or the other, for we may attract attention standing hero." " Oh courage, courage," exolaimed Georgiana, giving a smart rap at the door : " don't let us have to Bay we took all this trouble about the caps and things for nothing." And

bffnrp they had time to drw? back, which perhaps they would have done, after all, a boy opened the door and showed them into the presence of the Wizard. He looked an little like a wizard, that is, liku their idean of one, aa he could well look. A thin old gentleman of sixty, dressed in black with a white cravat, leaning back comfortably in an arm-chair ; they might have taken him for one of the minor-canons sitting at his east after dinner. The room had nothing in it but chair?, tablet, a carpet, the usual ordinary furniture; of all apparatus generally supposed to belong to the exercise of tke blaok art, the place wan void. " Is it the wrong house? " whispered Georgiana to her sister. " No, it is the right house," said the matter, answering her thoughts, for her speech, they truly believed, he conld not have heard. I " Which of you shall I Hpeak with first ? Let the others take a Heat." He motioned towards a row of ohaim that stood against the wall at the end of the room. The girls did not take the hint ; all three of them clustered round the table, on whioh stood a curiously-constructed lamp, not known in those days, but common enough now. ■ gave a great light, and Georgians, shrinking from its glare, poshed, almost imperceptibly, her sifter towards the soothsayer. He returned his seat, and looked at them, one by one. " Why did you come to me in disguise?" he asked : " with me it avails not. Take off those clumsy gloves," he^ontinued to Cicely ; " you havo adopted them that your lady-hands may be hidden from me ; but until I have examined those hands, I cannot aniwer you a single question, or tell aught that you seek to know." She removed obediently the old beaver gloves, almost reverently, as if she were in the presence of a master-spirit — perhaps she thought she wan. Before looking at her hands, be took out of a drawer a pack of cards, giving them to her to shuffle and out, and h« then placed them, one by one, their faoes upwards, upon the table. They were singular looking ; not playing oarda at all ; each oard presented a different and intricate pioture: and was inscribed with some curious Egyptian naruer). Cicely waited, her hands stretched oat to display their palmtj. Now the wizard would carefully examine the hands, a mioroucope to hii eye ; now, without the miorosoope, h« would study the oarda on the table. SPregently he laid the glass down, and looked in Cicely's face. The other two stood in silenoe, amusement displayed on the countenanoe of Florence Erskine. 41 You need not havo troubled yourself to come here," he began abruptly, addressing Cicely, " for I cau tell you little more than you already know." " Wnat do you mean ? " she stammered involuntarily ; and he resumed. " Your oourse will be marked with no event of sufficient moment to be set forth here ; neither of joy or sorrow. As a ship sails calmly along a smooth sea, so will you pass peacefully down the stream of your maiden life, until itd raoe shall be run." "But whs will be my husband?'* inquired the eager Cicely. " You will never marry," he returned. 41 Never marry 1 " echoed the girl. •' No. You had a chance once, and you threw it away. You will not have another." Georgi&na stared in amazement at the joke of Cicely 'a having received an offer, and rejrcted it. But look at Cioely— at her glowing colour ; that alone will tell you that his words are true. The 'assistant-surgeon, designated by her sisters as the elephant, the monkey in spectacles), had made Cicely an offer in eecret, and she refused it . " And be thankful that your life is destined to be so uneventful," continued the speaker to her. " There are two paths in the world ; one is of peace— and a very small one it ia, but little frequented ; the other is full of tnorns. To few people indeed is it given to tread the former ; but you are one of them." Tiie dismayed and angry Cicely felt her face grow hot and cold by turns, aa Bhe listened to this moßt unwelcome prediction ; and ahe only awoke from her astonishment to hear the mau address her sister. Georgiana had removed her gloves at hia desire, touched the cards as Cicely did, and waited. Florence had drawn nearer, and she saw, what she had never noticed before, that the inside of Georgiana's handa, even to the ends of the fingers, were' completely covered with lines; small linca, crossed, and re-orossed again. The old man sat looking at them with his glass to his ays. 11 Your fate in life will be widely different from your sister's," ha said at length, " for you will meet with, and endure, more oares than I should choose to tell you of." " And not be married either, perhaps ! burst forth the indignant Cioely. •' You will be married in God's own good time," he continued to Gaorgiana, taking no heed o! Cicely. " And though your life will be full of cares, as I now predict, there is no c*u*e for you to be dismayed, for it will not be without its componsntiouri. Your home will he in a foreign land, one washed by the troubled waterd of the Paoilio Ocean. He is tnero now ; and you will not see him yet : not for years." "Not there now?" exclaimed Qoorgiana, surprised out of the remark. "May be your "thoughts are running upon pne nearer and dearer," he rejoined : " but neither of you"— and he looked alternately at Georgiana and Florenoe— " will marry him; so let there be "t more bitter feeling between you. You have wasted by far too much on theao dreama already ; dreams that for both of you will oometo nought. The wife destined for him is aa yet a child, sporting m her mother's home : neither of you will ever be more to him than you are now." Georgmna, m uer surprise, could not find ready words to answer. Florence was indignant. . , „ •• You are mistaking your vooation, sir, she haughtily exclaimed. "I did not come here to have my fortune told.', " I will not tell it, young lady," he quietly replied. "Nevertheless, I should like to be allowed to take a closer look at your hands. Tneir marks strike me us being peculiar.' Florence's handa wert laying open on the table ; »ho had taken Off the large, uncomforable glove* assumed for disguise. Making no oojeotion, she moved them nearer to him in scornful compliance; perhaps in ouriosity. The Wizard examined them long and attentively, glanoing aside at the cards from time to time in silenoe. . " 1 did uot ouuie to you for auvioe or remark of any kind," repeated Florenoe, when he looked up. "8o you have informed mo : and I know that all I might say would be worae than deipiaed. Y«,t, if you would listen to ms, L could save you even no*." "Save me from what?" " Nay, why question me ? Have you not warned me that you wish to hear nothing?' "Iwnh to hear this," she answered, hsr tono ol doom growing deeper. " Tell it ms, I beg of you." " It will make no difference whether I do or not," remarked the man, as if speaking to himself. " From the fate wnich is threaten, ing you : and whioh appears" — bending again over her hands—" to be drawing very close now " " Pray what is the fate ? " she interrupted. " I cannot say. Ido not know." {To be Ct)..':,u,ed.)