Toys and merry-makings in childhood--love and its absurdities in youth--spadille and basto in age, shall succeed each other as objects of pursuit--flowers and butterflies in spring--butterflies and thistle-down in summer--withered leaves in autumn and winter--all pursued, all caught, all flung aside .-- Stand apart; your fortune is said." "All CAUGHT, however," retorted the laughing fair one, who was a cousin of Miss Vere's; "that's something, Nancy," she continued, turning to the timid damsel who had first approached the Dwarf; "will you ask your fortune ?" "Not for worlds," said she, drawing back; "I have heard enough of yours." "Well, then," said Miss Ilderton, offering money to the Dwarf, "I'll pay for mine, as if it were spoken by an oracle to a princess." "Truth," said the Soothsayer, "can neither be bought nor sold;" and he pushed back her proffered offering with morose disdain.
"Well, then," said the lady, "I'll keep my money, Mr.Elshender, to assist me in the chase I am to pursue." "You will need it," replied the cynic; "without it, few pursue successfully, and fewer are themselves pursued .-- Stop!" he said to Miss Vere, as her companions moved off, "With you I have more to say.
You have what your companions would wish to have, or be thought to have,--beauty, wealth, station, accomplishments." "Forgive my following my companions, father; I am proof both to flattery and fortune-telling." "Stay," continued the Dwarf, with his hand on her horse's rein, "I am no common soothsayer, and I am no flatterer.

All the advantages I have detailed, all and each of them have their corresponding evils--unsuccessful love, crossed affections, the gloom of a convent, or an odious alliance.

I, who wish ill to all mankind, cannot wish more evil to you, so much is your course of life crossed by it." "And if it be, father, let me enjoy the readiest solace of adversity while prosperity is in my power.

You are old; you are poor; your habitation is far from human aid, were you ill, or in want; your situation, in many respects, exposes you to the suspicions of the vulgar, which are too apt to break out into actions of brutality.

Let me think I have mended the lot of one human being! Accept of such assistance as I have power to offer; do this for my sake, if not for your own, that when these evils arise, which you prophesy perhaps too truly, I may not have to reflect, that the hours of my happier time have been passed altogether in vain." The old man answered with a broken voice, and almost without addressing himself to the young lady,-- "Yes, 'tis thus thou shouldst think--'tis thus thou shouldst speak, if ever human speech and thought kept touch with each other! They do not--they do not--Alas! they cannot.