ght round the
face, and cut it off at a straight line on the lower part. This gave the
idea of a mask. I am not saying it was a mask. I am only throwing out a
hint that, if the 'spirits' wish to convince people they should let the
neck be well seen. I am bound to say it bore a strong light for several
minutes; and some people say they saw eyelids. I did not. I do not say
they were not there. I know how impossible it is to prove a negative,
and only say I did not see them.

"What followed possessed no special interest for any but the professed
spiritualist, as it was done without any tying; Miss Cook arguing
logically enough that, if the previous manifestations were clearly
proved to have taken place by other agency than that of the medium
herself, mere multiplication of proofs was unnecessary. I had only gone
to study the matter from an athletic point of view; and I certainly came
away impressed with the idea that, if Miss Florence Cook first got into
and then got out of those knots, she was even more nimble and lithesome
than she looked, and ought to start an Amateur Ladies' Athletic Society
forthwith. As to her making faces at us through the window, I did not
care sufficiently about the matter to inquire whether she did or not,
because, if she got out of the ropes, it was easy enough to get on the
chair and make faces.

"Of course the cui bono remains. The professors make money by it; and
Miss Cook can make at most, only a little mild and scarcely enviable
notoriety. A satirical old friend of mine, when I told him the above
facts, chuckled, and said, 'That's quite enough for a girl of sixteen;
and anything that's do-able, a girl of those years will do.' It was no
use talking to him of panniers and loose sleeves, and lockets. He was an
old bachelor, and knew nothing about such things. At least, he had no
business to, if he did.

"I cannot forbear adding a domestic episode, though it is perhaps
scarcely relevant to the subject. Certain young imps in my house,
hearing what I had seen, got up an exhibition of spirit faces for my
benefit. They rigged up a kind of Punch-and-Judy erection, and the
cleanest of them did the spirit face, with a white pocket-handkerchief
over his head. He looked as stolid and unwinking as the genuine
spirit-physiognomy itself. The gas was lowered to a 'dim religious
light,' and then a black coal-scuttle, with features chalked on it,
deceived some of the circle into the idea that it was a nigg