Then,
suddenly changing her mood, she snatched Marian's palm, and gazed upon
it long and intently; gradually her features became disturbed--dark
shadows seemed to sweep, as a funereal train, across her face--her bosom
heaved--she dropped the maiden's hand.
"Why, Fanny, you have told me nothing! What do you see in my future?"
asked Marian.
The maniac looked up, and breaking, as she sometimes did, into
improvisation, chanted, in the most mournful of tones, these words:
"Darkly, deadly, lowers the shadow,
Quickly, thickly, comes the crowd--
From death's bosom creeps the adder,
Trailing slime upon the shroud!"
Marian grew pale, so much, at the moment, was she infected with the
words and manner of this sybil; but then, "Nonsense!" she thought, and,
with a smile, roused herself to shake off the chill that was creeping
upon her.
"Feel! the air! the air!" said Fanny, lifting her hand.
"Yes, it is going to rain," said Edith. "Come in, dear Fanny."
But Fanny did not hear--the fitful, uncertain creature had seized the
hand of the child Miriam, and was gazing alternately upon the lines in
the palm and upon her fervid, eloquent face.
"What is this? Oh! what is this?" she said, sweeping the black tresses
back from her bending brow, and fastening her eyes upon Miriam's palm.
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