I. 'I'll be
content with a single line an inch long.' She laughingly retorted: 'It's
hard to draw a straight line.' 'Very well, draw a crooked line. Draw a
zigzag--like a stroke of lightning. Draw it in yellow. Draw a circle.'
She said no more, but became silent, and we waited without change of
position. Remember that I was holding the slate during all this talk. It
did not leave my hands."

"What were the conditions? Was it light?" asked Miller.

"It was about two o'clock of an afternoon, and we sat in the bay-window
of the parlor. It was perfectly light. No one moved. The psychic sat
opposite us, leaning back in a thoughtful pose. Her hands lay in her
lap, and she seemed to be merely waiting. At last a tapping came upon
the slate, and she brightened up. 'It is done!' she called, exultingly.
I opened the slates myself, and _there, drawn in yellow crayon, was a
small circle with a zigzag yellow line crossing it exactly as I had
dictated_, and under Mrs. Rose's hands in the corner of the slate was a
gayly colored bunch of pansies. There were messages also, but I paid
very little attention to them. The production of that circle under those
conditions overshadowed everything else. It was a definite and complete
answer to my doubt. It was, in fact, a 'miracle.' I recall going
directly to a meeting of the society and reporting upon this sitting.
You will find the bald statement of my experiment in the minutes of the
secretary."

Miller was silent for a moment, then asked: "You're sure it was done
after you took the slates in hand?"

"I am as certain of it as I am of anything."

"How do you account for it? Of course it was a trick."

"Trickery can't account for that yellow line. The messages could have
been written beforehand, but no trick of prepared slates can account for
my dictated design. I have had other cases of slate-writing which were
almost as inexplicable, and Crookes and Wallace and Zoellner, as you
remember, were quite convinced by evidence thus secured. Crookes _saw_
the pencil at work. I have never witnessed the writing, but I have heard
it at work under my hands and I have felt it under my feet. I have had
writing on ten separate pages in a closed Manila-pad held between my
hands."

Miller seemed to be impressed by these statements. "I have always
considered slate-writing a cheap trick, but I don't quite see how that
was done--always providing your memory is not at fault."

"I would not place much de