she herself, perhaps, was in league with the thief. Many a harmless
maid has she brought to ruin by contriving plots and events herself,
and then pretending to foretell them. She had not, to be sure, the
power of really foretelling things, because she had no power of seeing
into futurity; but she had the art sometimes to bring them about
according as she had foretold them. So she got that credit for her
wisdom which really belonged to her wickedness.

Rachel was also a famous interpreter of dreams, and could distinguish
exactly between the fate of any two persons who happened to have a
mole on the right or the left cheek. She had a cunning way of getting
herself off when any of her prophecies failed. When she explained a
dream according to the natural appearance of things, and it did not
come to pass, then she would get out of that scrape by saying, that
"this sort of dreams went by contraries." Now, of two very opposite
things the chance always is, that one of them may turn out to be true;
so in either case she kept up the cheat.

Rachel, in one of her rambles, stopped at the house of farmer Jenkins.
She contrived to call when she knew the master of the house was from
home, which indeed was her usual way. She knocked at the door. The
maids being out haymaking, Mrs. Jenkins went to open it herself.
Rachel asked her if she would please to let her light her pipe. This
was a common pretence, when she could find no other way of getting
into a house. While she was filling her pipe, she looked at Mrs.
Jenkins, and said she could tell her some good fortune. The farmer's
wife, who was a very inoffensive, but a weak and superstitious woman,
was curious to know what she meant. Rachel then looked about very
carefully, and shutting the door with a mysterious air, asked her if
she was sure nobody would hear them. This appearance of mystery was at