“ Mr. Melanchthon Orr.”
On the heels of Annandale came a cousin of Miss Waldron, a lawyer by trade, a man with a bulldog face that was positively attractive.
There were more how-do-you-do’s, the usual platitudes, interrupted by the opening of doors at the further end of the room, where a butler, a squad of lackeys behind him, disclosed himself in silent announcement of dinner.
After the general move which then ensued and hosts and guests were seated at table, Orr created an immediate diversion by calling to Fanny Price and telling her that shortly she was to marry.
“Yes,” he continued, “and my cousin Sylvia is to marry also, though not so soon; but either Annandale or Royal will never marry at all.”
Bombarded by sudden questions Orr gazed calmly about.
“How do I know? Miranda told me. Miranda the spook. She charged five dollars for the information. If you like to make it up to me, I shall not mind in the least. On the contrary. You see, Mrs. Loftus,” Orr added, turning to his hostess, “I happened, when I went to her, to have your very kind invitation for this evening in my pocket, and, as she wanted something to psychometrize, I gave her that. She held it to her forehead and said, ‘I see you in the house of an elegant lady’—that is you, Mrs. Loftus; yes, there is no doubt about it—‘and there are present two young ladies, one fair, one dark, and two gentlemen; one of the gentlemen will never marry, but the dark young lady will marry in two years and the fair young lady in one. Five dollars. Thank you. Next.’ ”
“Did she say nothing about me except that I am an ‘elegant lady’?” Mrs. Loftus, with a pained laugh and a high voice, inquired.
“Did she say whom I am to marry?” Fanny Price asked, smiling, as she spoke, at Royal.