[Illustration:  “Miss Dowson, subsiding in her chair, went on with her book.”]

“There is my lord,” exclaimed Mrs. Dowson, waspishly; “anybody might think the ’ouse belonged to him.  And now he’s dancing on my clean doorstep.”

“Might be only knocking the mud off afore coming in,” said Mr. Dowson, as he rose to open the door.  “I’ve noticed he’s very careful.”

“I just came in to tell you a joke,” said Mr. Foss, as he followed his host into the kitchen and gazed tenderly at Miss Dowson—­“best joke I ever had in my life; I’ve ’ad my fortune told—­guess what it was!  I’ve been laughing to myself ever since.”

“Who told it?” inquired Mrs. Dowson, after a somewhat awkward silence.

“Old gypsy woman in Peter Street,” replied Mr. Foss.  “I gave ’er a wrong name and address, just in case she might ha’ heard about me, and she did make a mess of it; upon my word she did.”

“Wot did she say?” inquired Mr. Dowson.

Mr. Foss laughed.  “Said I was a wrong ’un,” he said, cheerfully, “and would bring my mother’s gray hairs to the grave with sorrow.  I’m to ’ave bad companions and take to drink; I’m to steal money to gamble with, and after all that I’m to ’ave five years for bigamy.  I told her I was disappointed I wasn’t to be hung, and she said it would be a disappointment to a lot of other people too.  Laugh!  I thought I should ’ave killed myself.”

“I don’t see nothing to laugh at,” said Mrs. Dowson, coldly.

“I shouldn’t tell anybody else, Charlie,” said her husband.  “Keep it a secret, my boy.”

“But you—­you don’t believe it?” stammered the crestfallen Mr. Foss.

Mrs. Dowson cast a stealthy glance at her daughter.  “Its wonderful ’ow some o’ those fortune-tellers can see into the future,” she said, shaking her head.

“Ah!” said her husband, with a confirmatory nod.  “Wonderful is no name for it.  I ’ad my fortune told once when I was a boy, and she told me I should marry the prettiest, and the nicest, and the sweetest-tempered gal in Poplar.”

Mr. Foss, with a triumphant smile, barely waited for him to finish.  “There you—­” he began, and stopped suddenly.

[Illustration:  “I just came in to tell you a joke.”]

“What was you about to remark?” inquired Mrs. Dowson, icily.

“I was going to say,” replied Mr. Foss—­“I was going to say—­I ’ad just got it on the tip o’ my tongue to say, ’There you—­you—­you ’ad all the luck, Mr. Dowson.’”

He edged his chair a little nearer to Flora; but there was a chilliness in the atmosphere against which his high spirits strove in vain.  Mr. Dowson remembered other predictions which had come true, notably the case of one man who, learning that he was to come in for a legacy, gave up a two-pound-a-week job, and did actually come in for twenty pounds and a bird-cage seven years afterwards.

[Illustration:  “He edged his chair a little nearer to Flora.”]