?"

"Oh, yes," laughed the gouty sufferer grimly, "a very material one
indeed. By some accident the medium knocked down the screen just after
we'd seen a spirit face floating _above_ it. In the confusion some one
struck a light, and there was our medium--standing on the chair without
his coat, and wrapping some transparent India muslin about himself,
which had been dipped in phosphorus I believe, so that it gave out a
curious shimmering light in the dark. You may suppose I never went in
for materialistic _seances_ again."

"Still," said Mrs Jefferson, "although you may have been tricked, it
doesn't stand to reason that spiritualism _is_ trickery. I've come from
the very core and centre of it--so to speak. I've been at more
_seances_ than I could count, and I've seen tests applied that _prove_
the manifestations are genuine. Still there are heaps of professional
mediums who are not to be depended on, I grant. If you want to know the
truth of spiritualism, you can always work it out for yourself. That's
quite possible, only it's a deal of trouble."

"I don't believe in it," reiterated Mrs Masterman stubbornly. "All
mediums are cheats and humbugs."

"Oh!" said Mrs Jefferson. "If it comes to exceptions laying down the
rule, where are we? The other day a clergyman was taken before the
courts for drunkenness, but I suppose you're not going to say all
clergymen are drunkards. A doctor poisoned a patient by mistake, but
surely we're not to class our dear medical men as poisoners and
murderers on that account. It's just the same with any abnormal or
extraordinary facts that set up a new theory for investigation.
Impostors are sure to creep in, and the lazy and the indifferent and the
sceptical call their exposure `results.' Depend on it we don't half
investigate subjects now-a-days, and we suffer for it by giving place
and opportunity for the development of a certain class of beings who
prey on our credulity, and make profit out of our indolence and
superstition."

"There's something in spiritualism, you bet," drawled the nasal voice of
Mr Ray Jefferson. "I've had messages written to me, and things said
that no third person could possibly have known about."

"Ah, slate writing," sneered Mrs Masterman. "I've seen that too. Just
another trick."

"How do you explain that?" asked Mrs Jefferson quickly.

"Well, this way. I went to two or three different mediums so as to test
them all. I found they had no