came in the mail
yesterday noon and another something again to-day which may be the cause
of his acting so strangely. I don't know what they were, he wouldn't
answer when I asked him, but I saw him reading a good deal yesterday
afternoon. And then he came into the kitchen where I was, took the lid
off the cookstove and put a bundle of printed pages on the fire. I asked
him what he was doing and he snapped at me that he was burning the words
of Satan or something of that sort."

"And couldn't you save enough of the--er--Old Scratch's words to find
out what the old boy was talkin' about?"

"No. There was a hot fire. But to-day, when the second package came,
I caught a glimpse of the printing on the wrapper. It was from The
Psychical Research Society; I think that was it. There is such a
society, isn't there?"

"I believe so. I... Ssh! Careful, here he is."

Captain Jethro strode across the parlor threshold. He glared beneath his
heavy eyebrows at the couple.

"Lulie," he growled, "don't you know you're keepin' the meetin' waitin'?
You are, whether you know it or not. Martha Phipps, come in and set
down. Come on, lively now!"

Martha smiled.

"Cap'n Jeth," she said, "you remind me of father callin' in the cat.
You must think you're aboard your old schooner givin' orders. All right,
I'll obey 'em. Ay, ay, sir! Come, Lulie."

They entered the parlor, whither Galusha, Mr. Cabot and Primmie had
preceded them and were already seated. The group in the room was made
up about as on the occasion of the former seance, but it was a trifle
larger. The tales of the excitement on the evening when the light keeper
threatened to locate and destroy the "small, dark outsider" had spread
and had attracted a few additional and hopeful souls. Mr. Obed Taylor,
driver of the Trumet bake-cart, and a devout believer, had been drawn
from his home village; Miss Tamson Black, her New Hampshire visit
over, was seated in the front row; Erastus Beebe accompanied his sister
Ophelia. The Hardings, Abel and Sarah B., were present and accounted
for, and so, too, was Mrs. Hannah Peters.

Galusha Bangs, seated between Miss Cash and the immensely interested
Cousin Gussie, gazed dully about the circle. He saw little except a blur
of faces; his thoughts were elsewhere, busy in dreadful anticipation of
the scene he knew he must endure when he and his cousin and Miss
Phipps returned to the house of the latter. He did not dare look in
her direction, fea