The beggars evidently considered a festival as a
harvest-day, and crowded round the doors of the cathedral. As the
Lady of Adlerstein came out leaning on Ebbo's arm, with Friedel on
her other side, they evidently attracted the notice of a woman whose
thin brown face looked the darker for the striped red and yellow silk
kerchief that bound the dark locks round her brow, as, holding out a
beringed hand, she fastened her glittering jet black eyes on them,
and exclaimed, "Alms! if the fair dame and knightly Junkern would
hear what fate has in store for them."
"We meddle not with the future, I thank thee," said Christina, seeing
that her sons, to whom gipsies were an amazing novelty, were in
extreme surprise at the fortune-telling proposal.
"Yet could I tell much, lady," said the woman, still standing in the
way. "What would some here present give to know that the locks that
were shrouded by the widow's veil ere ever they wore the matron's
coif shall yet return to the coif once more?"
Ebbo gave a sudden start of dismay and passion; his mother held him
fast.
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