o his avowal. Turning hot and cold at once, and wringing his moist
hands as he spoke, he said, taking everything for granted:

"Miss Maud, I have seen your father and he gives his consent, and you
have only to say the word to make us both happy."

"What?"

Anger, surprise, and contempt were all in the one word and in the
flashing eyes of the young woman, as she leaned back in her
rocking-chair and transfixed her unhappy suitor.

"Why, don't you understand me? I mean----"

"Oh, yes, I see what you mean. But I _don't_ mean; and if you had come
to me, I'd have saved you the trouble of going to my father."

"Now, look here," he pleaded, "you ain't a-going to take it that way,
are you? Of course, I'd have come to you first if I had 'a' thought
you'd preferred it. All I wanted was----"

"Oh," said Maud, with perfect coolness and malice,--for in the last
moment she had begun heartily to hate Bott for his presumption,--"I
understand what _you_ want. But the question is what _I_ want--and I
don't want you."

The words, and still more the cold monotonous tone in which they were
uttered, stung the dull blood of the conjurer to anger. His mud-colored
face became slowly mottled with red.

"Well, then," he said, "what did you mean by coming and consulting the
sperrits, saying you was in love with a gentleman------"

Maud flushed crimson at the memory awakened by these words. Springing
from her chair, she opened the door for Bott, and said, "Great
goodness! the impudence of some men! You thought I meant _you?_"

Bott went out of the door like a whipped hound, with pale face and
hanging head. As he passed by the door of the shop, Saul hailed him and
said with a smile, "What luck?"

Bott did not turn his head, he growled out a deep imprecation and
walked away. Matchin was hardly surprised. He mused to himself, "I
thought it was funny that Mattie should sack Sam Sleeny for that
fellow. I guess he didn't ask the sperrits how the land lay," chuckling
over the discomfiture of the seer. Spiritualism is the most convenient
religion in the world. You may disbelieve two-thirds of it and yet be
perfectly orthodox. Matchin, though a pillar of the faith, always
keenly enjoyed the defeat and rout of a medium by his tricksy and
rebellious ghosts.

He was still laughing to himself over the retreat of Bott, thinking
with some paternal fatuity of the attractiveness and spirit of his
daughter, when a shadow fell across him, and he saw Of