t it much. I would like to forget
it if I could and feel that I am like other people."

She had, in fact, shown a marked and increasing indisposition almost from
the first to discuss the events of that wonderful night at Mrs.
Legrand's. After having had the circumstances once fully explained to
her, she had never since referred to them of her own accord.

She apparently had the shrinking which any person, and especially a
woman, would naturally have from the idea of being regarded as something
abnormal and uncanny, and mingled with this was, perhaps, a certain
sacred shamefacedness, at the thought that this most intimate and vital
mystery of her second birth had been witnessed and was the subject of
curious speculations.

CHAPTER XI.

The ladies were out driving, the following afternoon, when Dr. Hull
arrived, but Paul was at home. He brought out some cigars, and they made
themselves comfortable on the piazza.

Dr. Hull was full of questions about Ida? how she appeared; what
relations had established themselves between Miss Ludington and her;
whether she showed any memory whatever of her disembodied state; whether
the knowledge of the mystery involving her seemed in any way to affect
her spirits or temper, or to set her apart in her own estimation from
others, with many other acute and carefully considered queries calculated
to elicit the facts of her mental and spiritual condition?

"There is one point," said the doctor, "about which I am particularly
curious. How is it with her memory of her former life on earth? Does it
break off suddenly, as if on some particular day or hour her spirit had
made way for its successor, and passed away from earth?"

"On the contrary," said Paul, "she has intimated, in talking over the
past with Miss Ludington, that the memory of her life on earth is clear
and precise during its earlier portions, but that toward the last it
grows hazy and indistinct."

"Exactly," broke in the doctor. "Just as if her personality had a little
overlapped and melted at the edge into that which followed it. Yes, it is
as I thought it might be. Youth, or childhood, or infancy, or any other
epoch of life, does not abruptly cease and give place to another. Their
souls are gradually withdrawn as the light is withdrawn from the sky at
evening, and a space of twilight renders the transition from one to the
other perceptible only in the result, not in the process. This I think is
a view of the ma