tter, and then I would
not do another thing. Take my word for it, you will never hear from
those people again."

We resolved, of course, that we would say nothing to Mr. Kilbright or
Lilian about this matter, for it was unwise to needlessly trouble their
minds; but we could not help talking about it a great deal ourselves. In
spite of the reassuring arguments which we continually thought of, or
spoke of to each other, we were troubled, anxious, and apprehensive.

"If we could only get them safely married," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "I
should feel at ease. Certainly those people would not do anything to him
then."

"I don't believe they can do anything to him at all," I answered. "But
how a marriage is going to protect him I cannot imagine."

"Of course, you can't explain such things," said my wife, "but I do
wish they were married and settled."

Not long after this she came to me with a supposition. "Supposing," she
said, "that those people find it impossible to dematerialize him, they
might do something which would be a great deal worse."

"What could that possibly be?" I asked.

"They might materialize his first wife," said she, "and could anything
be more dreadful than that? I suppose that woman lived to a good old
age, and to bring her forward now would be a height of cruelty of which
I believe those people to be fully capable."

"My dear," I exclaimed, "don't bring up any harrowing possibilities
which no one but yourself is likely to think of."

"I wish I could be sure of that," she said. "I have heard, but I don't
know how true it is, that spirits cannot be called up and materialized
unless somebody wants them, and I don't suppose there is anybody who
wants the first Mrs. Kilbright. But these men might so work on Mr.
Kilbright's mind as to make him think that he ought to want her."

I groaned. "Dear me!" I said. "I suppose if they did that they would
also bring up old Mr. Scott's mother, and then we should have a united
family."

"And a very funny one it would be," said my wife, smiling,
notwithstanding her fears, "for now I remember that old Mr. Scott told
me that his grandmother died before she was sixty, but that his mother
lived to be seventy-five. Now, he is eighty, if he is a day, so there
would be a regular gradation of ages in the family, only it would run
backward instead of in the usual way. But, thinking it over, I don't
believe the spiritualists will permanently bring up any more of that
fam