Their surprise then was prodigious when Mr.Beamish, accosting them full in assembly, inquired whether they were satisfied with the report of their fortunes, and yet more when he positively proved himself acquainted with the fortunes which had been recounted to each of them in privacy.
'You, Colonel Poltermore, are to be in luck's way up to the tenth milestone,--where your chariot will overset and you will be lamed for life.' 'Not quite so bad,' said the Colonel cheerfully, he having been informed of much better.
'And you, Count Caseldy, are to have it all your own way with good luck, after committing a deed of slaughter, with the solitary penalty of undergoing a visit every night from the corpse.' 'Ghost,' Caseldy smilingly corrected him.
'And Chloe would not have her fortune told, because she knew it!' Mr.
Beamish cast a paternal glance at her.

'And you, madam,' he bent his brows on the duchess, 'received the communication that "All for Love" will sink you as it raised you, put you down as it took you up, furnish the feast to the raven gentleman which belongs of right to the golden eagle ?' 'Nothing of the sort! And I don't believe in any of their stories,' cried the duchess, with a burning face.
'You deny it, madam ?' 'I do.

There was never a word of a raven or an eagle, that I'll swear, now.' 'You deny that there was ever a word of "All for Love"?
Speak, madam.' 'Their conjuror's rigmarole!' she murmured, huffing.

'As if I listened to their nonsense!' 'Does the Duchess of Dewlap dare to give me the lie ?' said Mr.Beamish.
'That's not my title, and you know it,' she retorted.
'What's this ?' the angry beau sang out.

'What stuff is this you wear ?' He towered and laid hand on a border of lace of her morning dress, tore it furiously and swung a length of it round him: and while the duchess panted and trembled at an outrage that won for her the sympathy of every lady present as well as the championship of the gentlemen, he tossed the lace to the floor and trampled on it, making his big voice intelligible over the uproar: 'Hear what she does! 'Tis a felony! She wears the stuff with Betty Worcester's yellow starch on it for mock antique! And let who else wears it strip it off before the town shall say we are disgraced--when I tell you that Betty Worcester was hanged at Tyburn yesterday morning for murder!' There were shrieks.
Hardly had he finished speaking before the assembly began to melt; he stood in the centre like a pole unwinding streamers, amid a confusion of hurrying dresses, the sound and whirl and drift whereof was as that of the autumnal strewn leaves on a wind rising in November.