ring to see once more upon her face the expression
of suspicion which he had already seen dawning there--suspicion of him,
Galusha Bangs. He sighed, and the sigh was so near a groan that his
relative was startled.

"What's the matter, Galusha?" he whispered. "Brace up, old man! you look
as if you were seeing spooks already. Not sick--faint, or anything like
that?"

Galusha blushed. "Eh?" he queried. "Oh--oh, no, no. Quite so, really.
Eh? Ah--yes."

Cabot chuckled. "That's a comprehensive answer, at any rate," he
observed. "Come now, be my Who's-Who. For example, what is the name of
the female under the hat like a--a steamer basket?"

Galusha looked. "That is Miss Hoag, the--ah--medium," he said.

"Oh, I see. Did the spirits build that hat for her?"

Miss Hoag's headgear was intrinsically the same she had worn at the
former seance, although the arrangement of the fruit, flowers, sprays
and other accessories was a trifle different. The red cherries, for
example, no longer bobbed at the peak of the roof; they now hung
jauntily from the rear eaves, so to speak. The purple grapes had also
moved and peeped coyly from a thicket of moth-eaten rosebuds. The wearer
of this revamped millinery triumph seemed a bit nervous, even anxious,
so it seemed to Martha Phipps, who, like Cabot and Galusha, was looking
at her. Marietta kept hitching in her seat, pulling at her gown, and
glancing from time to time at the gloomy countenance of Captain Jethro,
who, Miss Phipps also noticed, was regarding her steadily and slowly
pulling at his beard. This regard seemed to add to Miss Hoag's
uneasiness.

The majority of those present were staring at the senior partner of
Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot. The object of the attention could not help
becoming aware of it.

"What are they all looking at me for?" he demanded, under his breath.

Galusha did not hear the question, but Primmie did, and answered it.

"They don't know who you be," she whispered.

"What of it? I don't know who they are, either."

Miss Cash sniffed. "Humph!" she declared, "you wouldn't know much worth
knowin' if you did--the heft of 'em.... Oh, my savin' soul, it's a-goin'
to begin! Where's my mouth organ?"

But, to her huge disappointment, her services as mouth organist were
not to be requisitioned this time. Captain Hallett, taking charge of the
gathering, made an announcement.

"The melodeon's been fixed," he said, "and Miss Black's kind enough to
say she'll play