nding interest in the Sunday services at our
church, which finally led her to call on William one afternoon at the
parsonage. She was a dingy little blonde, with a tight forehead and a
thin nose. William was sitting alone in the peace of his spirit behind
the morning-glory vines on the front porch. Providence had wisely
removed me to the sewing-machine inside the adjoining room.

The sense of humor in me has never been converted, and there were
occasions when it was best for me not to be too literally present when
William was examining the spiritual condition of some puzzled soul. He
had risen and provided her with a chair and sat down opposite,
regarding her with a hospitable blue beam in his eyes. She had the
fatal facility for innocuous expression common to her class. All the
time I knew William was waiting like an experienced fisherman for a
chance to swing his net on her side of the boat. The poor man did not
dream that she was one of those unfortunate persons who has swapped her
real soul for a Hindu vagary. But presently she let it out.

"Mr. Thompson," she continued, without a rhetorical pause to indicate
the decimal points between her thoughts, "I was interested in what you
said about immortality last Sunday. Now, I wonder if you know it is an
actual fact that by breathing rhythmically thirty times, counting three
while you inhale, three while you exhale and three while you hold your
breath, you can actually get into touch at once with your astral shape?"

William fumbled in his pocket for his glasses, deliberately put them on
and then regarded her over the steel rims. I could see the Jehovah
crest of his spirit erect itself as he replied with divine dignity:

"Madam, I do not know what you mean by your astral shape, but I do not
have to pant like a lizard to keep in touch with my soul!"

But she bore with him, showing far more calmness than he as she went on
to describe the wonderful power of spirit she had developed. She had
even gone so far, she said, as a matter of experiment, to "put her
thought" upon the unborn child of a friend, and when the child came it
was not like its own mother or father, but her exact image. Now, she
declared, she was sure it was her own "thought" child. And what was
more convincing still, she had at last attained to a "sky-blue
aura"--she added this with an indescribable air of triumph. William
tightened his spectacles on his nose, drew his face close and stared a