ject was often very much the same as that
of every chemist and biologist of the present day. Take alchemy,
again, which is supposed by people generally to have been nothing but
an attempt to turn the baser metals into gold. According to the
Rosicrucians, who may be supposed to have known something about it,
alchemy was the science of guiding the invisible processes of life for
the purpose of attaining certain results in both the physical and
spiritual spheres. Chemistry deals with inanimate substances, alchemy
with the principle of life itself. The highest aim of the alchemist
was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and
semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden
properties which lie latent in man's nature."

"That is a very valuable thing to know," observed Austin, greatly
interested. "Every day I live, the more I realise the truth that
everything we see is on the surface, and that there's a whole world of
machinery--I can't think of a better term--working at the back of it.
It's like a clock. The face and the hands are all we see, but it's the
works inside that we can't see that make it go."

"Excellently put," returned St Aubyn. "There are influences and forces
all round us of which we only notice the effects, and how far these
forces are intelligent is a very curious question. I see nothing
unscientific myself in the hypothesis that they may be."

"I wonder!" exclaimed Austin. "Do you know--I have had some very funny
experiences myself lately, that can't be explained on any other ground
that I can think of. The first occurred the very day that I was here
first. Would you mind if I told you about them? Would it bother you
very much?"

"On the contrary! I shall listen with the greatest interest, I assure
you," replied St Aubyn, with a smile.

So Austin began at the beginning, and gave his friend a clear, full,
circumstantial account of the three occurrences which had made so deep
an impression on his mind. The story of the bricks riveted the
attention of his hearer, who questioned him closely about a number of
significant details; then he went on to the incident of Aunt
Charlotte's proposed journey, the mysterious warning he had received,
and the desperate measures to which he had been driven to keep her
from going out. St Aubyn shouted with laughter as Austin gravely
described how he had locked her up in her bedroom, and how lustily she
had banged and screamed to be