u
satisfied with the conditions?"

He answered, with some reservation: "They will do. I would like to have
light, but that I suppose is impossible."

"No, not impossible," replied Mrs. Smiley, "but the work is always
weaker in the light; the voices are stronger in the dark."

Mrs. Miller took her seat exactly opposite Mrs. Smiley. I was at her
right. Miller, after turning out the gas, sat opposite me and at the
psychic's left.

At first the room was black as ink, but by degrees I (from my position,
opposite the window) was able to perceive a faint glow of light through
the curtain. Mrs. Smiley's back was near a wall of books, and, the room
being narrow, Miller's chair pretty well filled the space between the
table and the window behind it. The action of a confederate was excluded
by reason of the bolted door. To enter the room by the window was
impossible, for the reason that the slightest noise could be heard and
the least movement of the curtain would admit the light. Barring the
darkness, conditions were all of our own making.

However, we were hardly settled in place when Miller was moved to
further precaution. "Mrs. Smiley, I would like to pin over your dress a
newspaper, so that any slightest movement of your knees or feet could be
heard. Do you object?"

"Not at all," she instantly replied. "I am sure my guides will do
anything they can to meet your wishes. You may nail my dress to the
floor if you wish."

Miller turned on the light, and together we pinned a large, crisp
newspaper over her knees and tacked it securely to the floor in front of
her feet. The corners where the pins were inserted were well out of the
reach of her tethered hands.

Again the lights were lowered, and at my direction Miller placed his
right hand on the psychic's left and touched fingers with Mrs. Miller. I
did the same, thus connecting the circle. In this way we sat quietly
conversing for some time.

"I want to make it quite plain to you," I said to them all, "that I am
trying to follow Crookes's advice, which is to strip away all romance
and all superstitious religious ideas from this subject. I am insisting
on the normal character of these phenomena. Whatever happens to-night,
Mrs. Miller, please do not be alarmed. There is nothing inherently
uncanny or unwholesome in these phenomena. No one knows better than
your husband the essential mystery of the simplest fact.
Materialization, for example, is unusual; but if it happens