er tossing two or
three contemptuously aside, she at last seemed to find one periodical
that interested her. She grew so absorbed in its contents, that she
scarcely heard the entrance of the beautiful woman who had so interested
her, and who now took the next couch to her own, and lay down in an
attitude of indolent grace that was quite in keeping with her
appearance.

"You seem interested," she remarked, as she glanced at the absorbed face
of her neighbour.

Mrs Jefferson looked up sharply. "Well," she said, turning the
magazine round to read its title. "This is about the queerest story I
ever read. I wish people wouldn't write improbabilities that no one can
swallow."

"The question is rather what is an improbability?" answered her
companion. "It is only a matter of the capacity of the age to receive
what is new. A few years ago electricity was improbable, yet look at
the telegraph and the telephone. Still further back, who would have
believed that railways would exist above ground and under ground, and
mock at the difficulties of rivers and mountains? What have you
discovered strange enough to be called `improbable'?"

"Oh! it's a story of a man who gets out of his own body and does all
sorts of queer things, and then goes back to it again, just when he
pleases. Finally, he falls in love with a woman as queer as himself,
and finding he has a rival, he just gets rid of him by force of
will-power. However, the day they are to be married, the woman is found
dead in her bed. It appears that she also could get out of her body
when she felt inclined, but she did it once too often, and couldn't get
back in time, so they buried her, at least they buried one of her
bodies; as far as I can make out she had _two_."

"And you think that improbable?" questioned the stranger calmly.

Her beautiful deep eyes were looking straight into the flushed excited
face beside her. Mrs Ray Jefferson met their gaze, and was conscious
of an odd little unaccountable thrill.

"Certainly I do," she said. "Who could believe that anyone can jump in
or out of their skin just as the fancy takes them?"

The stranger's beautiful lips grew scornful. "Oh!" she said, "if you
like to put the subject in that light, it may well look ridiculous and
impossible. Ignorance is always more or less arrogant. It is man's
habit to fancy that all creation was made for him. There are few things
of which he is so utterly ignorant, and of which