t
once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady
in question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject,"
"clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and
openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a
step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries
with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his
preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary,
all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and
artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order
to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to
ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest
of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity,
and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one
time very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family and
fortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. It was
white, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side of
a cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed
to insulate her from the material world, from time and space, and to
endow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit.

Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have little
to do with the present narrative--except, indeed, that I had
propounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the
success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was of
the true Sibylline stamp,--nonsensical in its first aspect, yet on
closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has
certainly accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle in
my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the
old man above mentioned interrupted me.

"Mr. Coverdale!--Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, in
order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he
uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to
Blithedale tomorrow."

I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patch
over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old
fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing
enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was
a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait