at they had happened on the same night and at the same hour. And
there is the mystery of magnetism."

The story-teller stopped suddenly.

Thereupon, one of those who had heard him, much affected by the
narrative, asked:

"And can you explain this?"

"Perfectly monsieur. I have discovered the secret. The circumstance
surprised me and even embarrassed me very much; but, I, you see, do not
believe on principle. Just as others begin by believing, I begin by
doubting; and when I don't at all understand, I continue to deny that
there can be any telegraphic communication between souls, certain that my
own sagacity will be enough to explain it. Well, I have gone on inquiring
into the matter, and I have ended, by dint of questioning all the wives
of the absent seamen, in convincing myself that not a week passed without
one of themselves or their children dreaming and declaring when they woke
up that the father was drowned. The horrible and continual fear of this
accident makes them always talk about it. Now, if one of these frequent
predictions coincides, by a very simple chance, with the death of the
person referred to, people at once declare it to be a miracle; for they
suddenly lose sight of all the other predictions of misfortune that have
remained unconfirmed. I have myself known fifty cases where the persons
who made the prediction forgot all about it in a week afterwards. But,
if in fact the man was dead, then the recollection of the thing is
immediately revived, and people will be ready to believe in the
intervention of God, according to some, and magnetism, according to
others."

One of the smokers remarked:

"What you say is right enough; but what about your second story?"

"Oh! my second story is a very delicate matter to relate. It is to myself
it happened, and so I don't place any great value on my own view of the
matter. One is never a good judge in a case where he is one of the
parties concerned. At any rate, here it is:

"Among my acquaintances in society there was a young woman on whom I had
never bestowed a thought, whom I had never even looked at attentively,
never taken any notice of, as the saying is.

"I classed her among the women of no importance, though she was not quite
bad-looking; in fact, she appeared to me to possess eyes, a nose, a
mouth, some sort of hair--just a colorless type of countenance. She was
one of those beings on whom one only thinks by accident, without taking
any particular