Page:A Bayard from Bengal.djvu/97

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A RIGHTABOUT FACER
57

for her nuptials with the accomplished Mr Bhosh? . . .

What, had she omitted to pop so important a question? How incredibly harebrained! Fortunately, there was yet time to do the needful, and she herself would gladly volunteer to accompany the Princess on such an errand.

Princess Petunia fell a ready victim into the jaws of this diabolical booby-trap and inquired the address and name of the cleverest necromancer, for it is matter of notoriety that London ladies are quite as superstitious and addicted to working the oracle as their native Indian sisters.

The Duchess replied that the Astrologer-Royal was a facile princeps at uttering a prediction, and accordingly on the very next day she and the Princess, after disguising themselves, set forth on the summit of a tramway 'bus to the Observatory Temple of Greenwich, where, after first propitiating the prophet by offerings, they were ushered into a