better than anywhere else. I preferred going in the daytime and in the
summer-time. Then my cousin and I sat in a nook of the garden and
fought violets, as we called it; hooked the wry necks of the flowers
together and twitched to see which blossom would come off first. She
was a sunny little thing, like her mother, and she had curls, like
her. I can't express the feeling I had for my aunt; she seemed the
embodiment of a world that was at once very proud and very good. I
suppose she dressed fashionably, as things went then and there; and
her style as well as her beauty fascinated me. I would have done
anything to please her, far more than to please my cousin. With her I
used to squabble, and sometimes sent her crying to her mother. Then I
always ran off home, but when I sneaked back, or was sent for to come
and play with my cousin, I was not scolded for my wickedness.

"My uncle was more prosperous than his brothers; he lived in a much
better house than ours, and I used to be quite awe-struck by its
magnificence. He went East, as we said, twice a year to buy goods,
and he had things sent back for his house such as we never saw
elsewhere; those cask-shaped seats of blue china for the verandas, and
bamboo chairs. There were cane-bottom chairs in the sitting-room, such
as we had in our best room; in the parlor the large pieces were of
mahogany veneer, upholstered in black hair-cloth; they held me in awe.
The piano filled half the place; the windows came down to the ground,
and had Venetian blinds and lace curtains.

"We all went in there after the Sunday night supper, and then the
fathers and mothers were apt to begin talking of those occult things
that gave me the creeps. It was after the Rochester Knockings, as they
were called, had been exposed, and so had spread like an infection
everywhere. It was as if people were waiting to have the fraud shown
up in order to believe in it."

"That sort of thing happens," Wanhope agreed. "It's as if the seeds of
the ventilated imposture were carried atmospherically into the human
mind broadcast and a universal crop of self-delusion sprang up."

"At any rate," Minver resumed, "instead of the gift being confined to
a few persons--a small sisterhood with detonating knee-joints--there
were rappings in every well-regulated household; all the tables
tipped; people went to sleep to the soft patter of raps on the
headboards of their beds; and girls who could not spell were occupied
in