landers grow when
either spirits are brought to the front, or we think we have found out a
conjuring trick. I am not going to follow the example of my gushing
brethren, but I can safely say that if anybody has an afternoon or
evening to spare, he may do worse than go to the Crystal Palace or the
Hanover Square Rooms, to see a very pretty and indescribable phenomenon,
and to return as I did, a wiser, though perhaps a sadder man, in the
proud consciousness of having "found out how it is all done."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A LADY MESMERIST.

When a man's whole existence has resolved itself into hunting up strange
people and poking his nose into queer nooks and corners, he has a sorry
time of it in London during August; for, as a rule, all the funny folks
have gone out of town, and the queer nooks and corners are howling
wildernesses. There is always, of course, a sort of borderland, if he
can only find it out, some peculiar people who never go out of town,
some strange localities which are still haunted by them; only he has to
find them out--people and places--for it is so universally allowed
now-a-days that all genteel people must be out of London in August, and
all respectable places must be covered up in old newspapers, that it is
difficult to get them to own the soft impeachment.

However, there is one queer place that is never shut up, the Progressive
Library in Southampton Row; and Mr. Burns and the Spiritualists, as a
rule, do not shut up shop even in August. Their Summerland lies
elsewhere than Margate or the Moors; and a valse with a pirouetting
table or a little gentle levitation or elongation delights them more
than all the revels of the countryside. I was getting a little blase, I
own, on the subject of Spiritualism after my protracted experiences
during the Conference, and I do not think I should have turned my steps
in the direction of the Progressive Institution that week had not the
following announcement caught my eye as I scanned the ghostly pages of
the _Medium and Daybreak_:--

"A MESMERIC SEANCE.

"We have been authorized to announce that Miss Chandos,
whose advertisement appears in another part of this paper,
will give a mesmeric seance at the Spiritual Institution,
15, Southampton Row, on Wednesday evening, August 19th, at
eight o'clock. Admission will be free by ticket, which may
be obtained at the Institution. The object which Miss
Chandos has in vie