all very bearded and elderly, all very much muddled together, passed
before her eyes. "It seems so silly to think you can see from those
scratchy marks what I am going to do in years and years and years."

But as the gipsy went away, smiling wisely, and asking none of the usual
pieces of silver, all the Kelt in Marcella, which believed things had no
roots, came rushing to the surface and sent her indoors to write down
the gipsy's prophecy. Later, with a sense of mischievous amusement she
rummaged in the book-room to find one of the Rationalist books. But they
had been sold, most of them. Professor Kraill's "Questing Cells" was
there and she copied the prophecy into it, on the fly-leaf.

"Talk about a battle-ground!" she said, smiling reflectively. "Professor
Kraill and a gipsy!"

She turned several pages, and once more got the feel of the book, though
still much of it was Greek to her. Then she got down from the window
seat, for her aunt was calling her to tea, and she was hungry.

There was an unusual pot of jam on the table. She looked at it in
surprise as she sat down.

"That is some of Mrs. Mactavish's bramble jelly that she sent up for the
funeral; I thought we'd not be needing it just then. But now I see it's
beginning to get mildewed. So it'll need to be eaten before it's
wasted," said Aunt Janet, peeling off the top layer of furry green mould
and handing the pot to Marcella.

"Oh I do love bramble jelly," she cried, passing it to Jean, who always
ate with them in the good old feudal fashion, right at the foot of the