Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
You havehim you had told me Nohat did you do for him that made him say so?”
She replied, with an innocence the sister of which I have never seen through allas to ask rown up And I said, No I think that was the good I did hiet the peculiar startled sensation that struck through me I had never entertained such a notion, or any notion of the kind about anybody; and about her it was indeed new, and to ood you did him, Miss Benette!” I cried in such a scared tone that she dropped her work into her lap ”I should have thought it would have done hiood if you had said, Yes”
”You are very kind to think so,” she replied, in a tone like a confiding child's to a superior in age,--far fro as myself,--”but I know better, Master Auchester It was the only thing I could do to show ratitude”
”Were you sorry to say No, Miss Benette?”
”No; very glad and very pleased”
”But it is rather odd I should have thought you would have liked to say, Yes You do not love him, then?”
”Oh! yes, I do, well But I do not wish to belong to him, nor to any one,--only to music now; and besides, I should not have had his love
He wished to ht take care of me But when he said so, I answered, 'Sir, I can take care of myself'”
”But, Miss Benette, how much should one love, and how, then, if one is to marry? For I do not think all people h to understand, and I ah to tell you,” she said sweetly, with her eyes upon her work as usual, ”nor do I wish to know If some people marry not for love, what is that to me?
I am not even sorry for them,--not so sorry as I am for those who know not music, and whom music does not know”
”Oh! they are worse off!” I involuntarily exclaimed ”Do you think I am 'known of music,' Miss Benette?”
”I daresay; for you love it, and will serve it I cannot tell further, I am not wise Would you like to have your fortune told?”
”Miss Benette! what do you mean? You cannot tell fortunes!”
”But Thone can She is a gypsy,--a real gypsy, Master Auchester, though she was naughty, and married out of her tribe”
”What tribe?”
”Hush!+” said Clara, whisperingly; ”she is in ht I was talking about her”
”But you said she cannot speak English”
”Yes; but she always has a feeling when I a about her Such people have,--their sy”
Now, it happened we had often talked over gypsies and their pretensions in our house, and various had been the utterances of our circle Lydia doomed them all as imposters; my mother, who had but an ideal notion of them, considered, as many do, that they soyptian, because of their contour and their skill in pottery,--though, by the way, she had never read upon the subject, as she always averred But Millicent was sufficient for me at once, when she had said one day, ”At least they are a distinct race, and possess in an e faith in the supernatural by the exercise of physical and spiritual gifts that only act upon the marvellous”
I always understood Millicent, whatever she said, and I had often talked with her about them I rather suspect she believed the, that I was rather nervous when Miss Benette announced, with such child-like assurance, her intuitive credence in their especial ability to discern and decipher destiny
I said, ”Do you think she can, then?”
”Perhaps it is vulgar to say 'tell fortunes,' but what Iher eyes over you, and looking into your eyes, and exa your brohat kind of life you are most fit for, and what you would make out of it”