oes not affect this view of the case that she unquestionably
cooperated with her conscienceless sister and the servant girl in the
production of the fraudulent phenomena to which Kerner testifies. Their
cheating was probably done for the sole purpose of making sure of the
comfortable berth in which the physician's credulity had placed them.
Hers, on the other hand, was the deceit of an irresponsible mind, of one
living in such an atmosphere of unreality that she could readily
persuade herself that the knockings, candle dancings, book openings, and
similar acts were the work not of her own hands but of the ghosts which
tormented her. Indeed, researches of recent years in the field of
abnormal psychology show it is quite possible that she was absolutely
ignorant of any personal participation in the movements and sounds which
caused such wide-spread mystification. Sympathy and pity, therefore,
should take the place of condemnation when we follow the course of her
eventful and unhappy life.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Kerner's account of Frederica Hauffe is found in his "Die Seherin
von Prevorst," accessible in an English translation by Mrs. Catharine
Crowe. Students of the supernatural, it may be added, will find a great
deal of interesting material in Mrs. Crowe's "The Night Side of
Nature."

VIII

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. HOME

"So you've brought the devil to my house, have you?"

"No, no, aunty, no! It's not my fault."

With an angry gesture the woman, tall, large boned, harsh visaged,
pushed back her chair and advanced threateningly toward the pale, anemic
looking youth of seventeen, who sat cowering at the far end of the
breakfast table.

"You know this is your doing. Stop it at once!"

The other gazed helplessly about him, while from every side of the room
came a volley of raps and knocks. "It is not my doing," he muttered. "I
cannot help it."

"Begone then! Out of my sight!"

Left to herself and to silence,--for with her nephew's departure the
noise instantly ceased,--she fell into gloomy meditation. She was an
exceedingly ignorant, but a profoundly religious woman. She had heard
much of the celebrated Fox sisters, with tales of whose strange actions
in the neighboring State of New York the countryside was then ringing,
and she recognized, or imagined she recognized, a striking similarity
between their performances and the tumult of the last few minutes. It
was her firm belief that the Fox girls were victims