scussed. To people like the ordinary run of the
believers in spiritism, the opera, the ballet, and the annual Zola are
unknown, and they must take their excitements where they can find them.
The dim light, the unhealthy commerce of fictitious ghosts, the
unreality of act and sentiment, the unwonted abandon, form an
atmosphere in which these second-hand mystics float away into a sphere
where the morals and the manners are altogether different from those of
their working days.

Miss Matchin had not usually joined in these morbid discussions. She
was of too healthy an organization to be tempted by so rank a mental
feast as that, and she had a sort of fierce maidenhood about her which
revolted at such exposures of her own thought. But to-night she was
sorely perplexed. She had been tormented by many fancies as she looked
out of her window into the deepening shadows that covered the lake. The
wonders she had seen in that room, though she did not receive them with
entire faith, had somewhat shaken her nerves; and now the seer sat
beside her, his pale eyes shining with his own audacity, his lank hair
dripping with sweat, his hands uneasily rubbing together, his whole
attitude expressive of perfect subjection to her will.

"Why isn't this a good chance?" she thought. "He is certainly a smart
man. Horrid as he looks, he knows lots. May be he could tell me how to
find out."

She began in her airiest manner: "Oh, Mr. Bott, what a wonderful gift
you have got! How you must look down on us poor mortals!"

Bott grew spotted, and stammered:

"Far from it, Miss Matchin. I couldn't look down on you."

"Oh, you are flattering. That's not right, because I believe every word
you say--and that ain't true."

She rattled recklessly on in the same light tone.

"I'm going to ask you something very particular. I don't know who can
tell me, if you can't. How can a young lady find out whether a young
gentleman is in love with her or not? Now, tell me the truth this
time," she said with a nervous titter, "for it's very important."

This question from any one else would not have disconcerted Bott in the
least. Queries as absurd had frequently been put to him in perfect good
faith, and answered with ready and impudent ignorance. But, at those
giggling words of Maud Matchin, he turned livid and purple, and his
breath came heavily. There was room for but one thought in that narrow
heart and brain. He had long cherished a rather cowardly fondne