lled forth by our actions in that world. All lives are
not meant to be isolated, and certainly none for the whole period of
earth life. A person would have to be very sure that he was _free_ to
cut himself adrift from his fellows before he would even be permitted to
do it."

"Permitted!" echoed Mrs Jefferson, rather vaguely. "But by whom?"

"The teachers of occult science," answered the Princess Zairoff.

"But who are they?" exclaimed the little American.

"That I cannot tell you," she answered, gravely. "They exist, and their
influence is already beginning to make itself felt. But it would be a
poor triumph to unveil the highest wisdom that humanity can ever learn,
in order to satisfy the idle and the curious, and the lovers of marvels.
Those who desire to learn can always do so, but nothing is forced upon
you, or even obtruded. I should not have opened my lips on the subject
had you not expressed a desire to hear something about it."

"I suppose," said Mrs Jefferson, eagerly, "you yourself are a believer
in occultism?"

"Madame Zairoff is a great deal more than that," said Colonel Estcourt;
"she is one of its most earnest students and most ardent votaries. If
you knew half of her marvellous powers you would congratulate yourselves
upon being permitted to receive her, unless, indeed," he added, with a
questioning glance at the beautiful woman beside him, "she has a fancy
to make converts."

The men became eager of entreaties to her so made, but the women held
back a little.

Princess Zairoff, however, assured them she had no intention of
proselytising. "It is quite true I am deeply interested in this
subject," she said, "but I should be sorry to bore you all with my
views, or the reasons for my holding those views. Psychic inquiry
demands a great deal more than cursory study. There are many mysteries
of nature that men have looked upon as enigmas, until patience and
research have solved them for them. Then they marvel how they could
have been blind so long! Magnetism, spiritualism, and clairvoyance have
all their mystical, as well as their explicable, side. It is only
because they don't readily lend themselves to the comprehension of our
material nature, that we try to scoff them into the limbo of absurdity
and imposture."

"Ah," said Mrs Jefferson. "Talking of clairvoyance, _that_ I do
believe in. I knew a coloured woman in America--the way that woman
would tell you things--it was enough to m