that clenched the doubts of this Thomas at once, for he
rejoined, "What is there that a pretty little _simple_ girl of sixteen
won't do?" Miss Showers is sweet sixteen, too; and when "Peter" sings
through her in a clear baritone voice, I cannot, despite myself, help
the thought occasionally flitting across my mind, "Would that you were
six-and-twenty, or, better still, six-and-thirty, instead of sixteen!"
Without specifying to which of the two latter classes our present medium
belonged, one might venture to say she had safely passed the former. She
was of that ripe and Rubens-like beauty to which we could well imagine
some "Higher" spirit offering the golden apple of its approval, however
the skittish Paris of the spheres might incline to sweet sixteen. I had
a short time before sat infructuously with this lady, when a distressing
contretemps occurred. We were going in for a dark seance then, and just
as we fancied the revenants were about to justify the title, we were
startled by a crash, and on my lighting up, all of the medium I could
see were two ankles protruding from beneath the table. She had fainted
"right off," as the ladies say, and it required something strong to
bring her to. In fact, we all had a "refresher," I recollect, for
sitting is generally found to be exhausting to the circle as well as to
the medium. On the present occasion, however, everything was, if not en
plein jour, en plein gaz. There was a good deal of preliminary
difficulty as to the choice of a chair for the medium. Our artist-friend
had a lot of antique affairs in his studio, no two being alike, and I
was glad to see the lady select a capacious one with arms to it, from
which she would not be likely to topple off when the spirits took
possession. The rest of us sat in a sort of irregular circle round the
room, myself alone being accommodated with a small table, not for the
purposes of turning (I am set down as "too physical") but in order to
report the utterances of the Higher Spirits. We were five "assistants"
in all--our host, a young lady residing with him, another lady well
known as a musical artiste, with her mamma and my unworthy self.
Installed in her comfortable chair, the medium went through a series of
facial contortions, most of which looked the reverse of pleasing, though
occasionally she smiled benignantly par parenthese. I was told--or I
understood it so--that this represented her upward passage through
different spheres. She w