en,
what _have_ you been doing, and how _are_ you, anyhow? Come, now, tell
me all about yourself!"

Saying this in a kind of a rush of excitement, Miss Gray settled
herself in a corner of the luxurious sofa, pulled her feet under her to
get a more comfortable position, and like an interested philosopher,
waited for and listened to the narrative which comprised many of the
facts I have given; but instead of telling the whole truth, only gave
that part of it which made her appear to have been eminently successful
in her swindling operations, and showed life with her to have been
floating calmly upon one continuous, peaceful stream.

"And now, Evalena," said Mrs. Winslow, rounding off her story with a
great flourish over what she was to make out of Lyon, whom she described
as still madly in love with her, "where have _you_ been, and what have
_you_ been doing since I saw you at Chardon?"

The glib tongue of the marvellous Physical Spiritual Medium began at
once, and she rattled away at a terrible rate.

"Well, I've got the same husband----"

"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Mrs. Winslow half contemptuously.

"But he's such a dear, good old fool that I can't throw him over. Why, I
can make him shrink from six feet two to two feet six by just looking at
him! Money couldn't hire such a devoted servant anywhere. He'll do just
anything I tell him; and if I want him out of the way for a few days,"
she continued with a comical wink, "I just give him a fifty-dollar bill
and say: 'Daddy, you don't look well; take a run into the country, and
I'll write for you when I want you!' He goes away then with his face
about a yard long. But he goes; and he never made a rumpus in his life!"

"Oh, that's quite another thing," said Mrs. Winslow, evidently relieved
to know that Miss Gray had had so good a reason for living so long a
time as three years with the same man.

"Yes, he's what I call an 'accommodation husband.' He accommodates me,
and I--" here Miss Gray sighed piously--"accommodate myself!"

"Exactly," remarked Mrs. Winslow, beginning to appreciate the pleasant
nature of such an arrangement.

"Well," resumed the marvellous medium, "we went all through the Ohio
towns giving _exposes_; went out through Chicago, and then down to St.
Louis. But the _expose_ business didn't pay. We found that people would
pay more money to be humbugged than to learn how some other person might
be deluded!"

"Every time!" tersely observed Mrs. Winslow