"You?" cried Peggy and Mark, simultaneously.
"Yes, indeed, it made me perfectly crazy to see the two of you groaning and fussing, without the courage to say what your hearts dictated. There, go and kiss each other, you pair of noodles."
It is hardly necessary to say that Bridget's explanation brought about a pleasant understanding between all parties, and it will be only needful to add that a few weeks afterwards there was a _double_ wedding at the little parish chapel. One of the brides wore a bran new calico gown of such wonderful variety of color, and moreover a new cap of so elaborate a style of decoration, that she was the admiration and, of necessity, the envy of the entire female population.
Bridget had won both her wagers, thereby establishing, just as infallibly as all such matters _can_ be established, the truth of the old saying:
_The dream of the morning is sure to come true._
"Show his eyes, and grieve his heart, Come like shadows so depart."
The insatiable desire to penetrate the dark veil of futurity, which pervades all classes, from the highest to the lowest, renders the occupation of the _Fortune-Teller_ one of considerable profit. In no part of the world are there so many professors of the _art_, as in Ireland. The most insignificant village has its cunning person, of one sex or the other, whose province generally is to cure bewitched cattle, be well acquainted with all the scandalous gossip of the vicinity, and give advice and assistance in all delicate and difficult affairs of the heart; added to which, in some instances, a "_trifle of smugglin'_," and in all, the vending of interdicted drink: _Potieen_, that had never seen the ill-looking face of a gauger; a kind of liquid fire you might weaken with aquafortis, that would scrape the throat of an unaccustomed drinker as if he had swallowed a coarse file, but which our seasoned tipplers "_toss off_," glass after glass, without a grin, their indurated palates receiving it like so much water.
The class of individuals who take up, or are instructed in the mysteries of Fortune-telling, combine rather antagonistic elements. They are generally the shrewdest, cunningest, cleverest, laziest people you can find. Studying, and understanding to a charm, the most assailable points of human nature, they obtain from their applicants, by circuitous questioning, the precise nature of their expectations; then dexterously "_crossing the scent_," with an entirely different subject, astonish them at last by expounding their very thoughts. Nor are the old-established mysteries, the appliances and incantations omitted, although they necessarily must be of a simple and curious nature; the great oracle, the cards, is brought into requisition on all occasions, varied by a mystic examination of tea-grounds, melted lead, and indeed, sometimes in imitation of the ancient soothsayer, _facilis descensus_, by the sacrifice of some poor old cat.