have had their evening
meal, and while she is seated at her book; but Randall grows eloquent
in his description of what took place: 'Almost every night at seven
o'clock the obscure powers begin their uncanny and invisible riot,
ending by seizing upon the child as if to destroy her, compelling her
in the end to sleep. Then her voice, her limbs, seem at the disposal
of some invisible intelligence.' You see, the old man is weakening. He
says no more of hysteria, and nothing about taking the girl away."

"Do you mean to tell me he joined in fostering this delusion?"

"Mark his change of tone. He goes on: 'The mother, convinced by her
reading, as well as by messages in writing, believes that the spirits
of her dead are trying to communicate with her, and so sits night
after night terrified yet hoping, waiting for further instructions
from the imponderable ones.'" Britt turned a few pages rapidly.
"Listen to this. Here is the key to the old man's change of heart:
'To-night the child began to speak to me in the voice of a man.
Hoarse words rose from deep in her throat, a voice and words
impossible to her in her normal condition. The voice purported to be
my father's. It is all very singular. I do not understand how she
could know the things this voice uttered to me.' You see," said Britt,
"he has ceased to be the medical adviser." He turned a number of pages
slowly. "Well, the girl passed rapidly through these various phases,
according to Randall. She wrote messages with her left hand, wherein
her grandfather McLeod detailed the method of treating her, and
Randall was so far gone that he acquiesced. From her eleventh to her
fifteenth year she lived under this 'control.' The manifestations
increased in power and definiteness. The 'controls' at last were
three--her grandfather, her brother, and her own father. At sixteen
the most violent of the manifestations ceased, and the girl went away
to school. At this point Joe Lambert enters--he married the mother."

"How did he take these doings?"

"He seems to have been a silent and reluctant witness; the doctor only
mentions him incidentally. There are one or two pitiful letters from
the girl written while at school, detailing several embarrassing
returns of the 'spirits,' but, on the whole, she was happy. According
to the record, her vacations must have been a torment, for 'Waltie,'
that's no _Polter-geist_, seemed determined to make up for lost time.
He came every night, making