"Feel! the air! the air!" said Fanny, lifting her hand.

"Yes, it is going to rain," said Edith. "Come in, dear Fanny."

But Fanny did not hear--the fitful, uncertain creature had seized the
hand of the child Miriam, and was gazing alternately upon the lines in
the palm and upon her fervid, eloquent face.

"What is this? Oh! what is this?" she said, sweeping the black tresses
back from her bending brow, and fastening her eyes upon Miriam's palm.
"What can it mean? A deep cross from the Mount of Venus crosses the line
of life, and forks into the line of death! a great sun in the plain of
Mars--a cloud in the vale of Mercury! and where the lines of life and
death meet, a sanguine spot and a great star! I cannot read it! In a
boy's hand, that would betoken a hero's career, and a glorious death in
a victorious field; but in a girl's! What can it mean when found in a
girl's? Stop!" And she peered into the hand for a few moments in deep
silence, and then her face lighted up, her eyes burned intensely, and
once more she broke forth in improvisation:

"Thou shalt be bless'd as maiden fair was never bless'd before,
And the heart of thy belov'd shall be most gentle, kind and pure;
But thy red hand shall be lifted at duty's stern behest,
And give to fell destruction the head thou lov'st the best.

"Feel! the air! the air!" she exclaimed, suddenly dropping the child's
hand, and lifting her own toward the sky.

"Yes, I told you it was going to rain, but there will not be much, only
a light shower from the cloud just over our heads."