The Argosy — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Lady Valeria. 101 Even Mrs. Beltran was touched, or had the heart to seem so. ‘“Who said you were always to be ill and miserable, and apart from other girls? Didn’t I tell you great things were coming for you?” And she began to pass her forefinger anew over the cards she had firstlaid down. ‘‘ Wait for the first Black Seven " “Tell me ¢hat/” cried the girl. ‘That was to be your card. Don’t talk to me about fair or dark kings. ‘Tell me at once what you are going to do for me.” Mrs. Beltran waited until she had placed the last card of the pack which she had commenced with the King of Hearts, carefully read- ing it to herself ; though, in compliance with Elsie’s request, she com- municated no more of the results to her. She took out from her pocket the last pack, handed it to Elsie to cut as before, and commenced to deal, facing the cards. ‘‘ Watch for the Seven of Spades,” she said, as the cards dropped swiftly from her fingers. ‘The heap on the table grew, and the pack she held dimi- nished one by one, till withina fewof the end. She looked surprised, and her brows bent in perplexity. ‘‘T must be going to have very little to do with you after all,” and the last card dropped from her fingers as she spoke. ‘Can we both have missed it? ‘That is unlucky, very unlucky,” she said seriously,. and taking up the pack, shuffled it, and gave it to Elsie to cut afresh. Again she dealt the cards slowly and carefully to the end. Long before reaching it her practised fingers had told her a card was miss- ing. The Seven of Spades had disappeared from the pack. She shook her apron, and turned out the pocket. Each pack had been held by a little band of coloured ribbon, so that it would have seemed impossible for a card to have escaped. Nevertheless, she looked carefully on the floor about, and at last went on her knees to. search under the table. “Has it slipped into the kilting of your skirt?” Elsie asked. “I fancied I saw——— ” ‘IT remember!” interrupted Mrs. Beltran, emerging from under the table. “I know now! I was looking over them upstairs one night alone and dropped them all on the floor. It has slipped away through the cracks of the boards there. I nearly lost a letter so one day. But that it should have been that card!” And she growled a comment in Creole French between her teeth that, fortu- nately for Elsie’s sense of propriety, was unintelligible to her. She stood for an instant almost white with anger, wrenching the pack between her hands in a vain effort to tear it. “Don’t! What a pity!” cried Elsie, as she, with another fierce word, thrust them between the bars of the grate; “ the card might have been found again.” ‘The card might have been found, but the chance was lost. They can never again be the first cards touched by your fingers. And they VOL. XLI. H COMIC OOO Ss (CO)