You have, for instance, been guilty of great cruelty; and although you are but a young woman, in the very bloom of life--" Here the lady bowed to him, and simpered--her thin, red nose twisted into a gracious curl, as thanking him for his politeness.
"In the very prime of life, madam--yet you have much to be accountable for, in consequence of your very heartless cruelty to the male sex--you see, madam, and you feel too, that I speak truth." The lady put the spectre of an old fan up to her withered visage, and pretended to enact a blush of admission.
"Well, sir," she replied, "I--I--I cannot say but that--indeed I have been charged with--not that it--cruelty--I mean--was ever in my heart; but you must admit, sir, that--that--in fact--where too many press, upon a person, it is the more difficult choose." "Unquestionably; but you should have, made a judicious selection--and that was because you were in no hurry--and indeed you need not be; you have plenty of time before you.

Still, there is much blame attached to you--you have defrauded society of its rights.

Why, now, you might have been the proud mother of a son or daughter at least five years old by this time, if it had not been for your own obduracy--excuse me." Up went the skeleton fan again with a wonderfully modest if not an offended simper at the notion of such an insinuation; but, said she in her heart, this is the most gentlemanly conjurer that ever told a fortune; quite a delightful old gentleman; he is really charming; I wish I had met him twenty years ago." "Well, sir," she replied, "I see there is no use in denying--especially to you, who seem to know everything--the truth of the facts you have stated.

There was one gentleman in particular whom I rejected--that is, conditionally--rather harshly; and do you know, he took the scarlet-fever soon afterwards and died of a broken-heart." "Go on, madam," said he; "make a clean breast of it--so shall you enable me to compare the future with the past, and state your coming fortunes more distinctly." "Another gentleman, sir--a country squire--owes, I fear, his death to my severity; he was a hard drinker, but I gave him a month to reform--which sentence he took so much to heart that he broke his neck in a fox-chase from mere despair.

A third individual--a very handsome young man--of whom I must confess I was a little jealous about his flirting with another young lady--felt such remorse that he absolutely ran away with and married her.