ularly strong among the girls of the
Sixth Form, who leaned towards its intellectual and scientific
aspects. They despised vulgar apparitions, but discussed such abstruse
problems as phantasms of the living, thought transference, will power,
hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Meta Wright dabbled a little in
palmistry, and examined the hands of her schoolmates, prophesying
startling events in their future careers. Lois Barlow sent
half-a-crown to a ladies' newspaper to have her horoscope cast, and
was terribly dejected at the gloomy prospects offered her by the
planets, till she fortunately discovered that she had put the date of
her birth wrong by three hours, which would, of course, completely
alter the aspect of the heavenly bodies, and cause the best of
astrologers to err. Veronica Terry talked darkly of experiences in the
psychic world, of astral bodies, etheric doubles, elemental entities,
and nature spirits. She went to sleep at night with her thumbs and big
toes crossed, in the hope of bringing back the adventures of her
dreams into her waking consciousness. She was a little hazy on the
subject, but yearned for further instruction.

"It's called 'Yoga'," she confided to her particular chum, Barbara
Rowlands. "You concentrate your mind before you go to sleep, and then
you're able to function in the astral body. My cousin Winnie told me
of a girl at College who did it, and she was seen standing in the room
of a friend at the other side of the hostel, while all the time she
was asleep in bed."

"I hope you won't do that!" shuddered Barbara nervously. "It would
give me a fit if I woke up and found you staring at me, and knew it
wasn't really you. Promise you won't!"

"It may be rather difficult to regulate one's movements, once one is
out of the body," returned Veronica guardedly.

Barbara did not crave for spiritual excursions, and secretly preferred
the old days, when her chum talked tennis instead of psychology; but
the occult was paramount, and she was obliged to follow the fashion.
The atmosphere of the Grange was certainly conducive to superstition.
The dim passages and panelled walls looked haunted. Every accessory of
the old mansion seemed a suitable background for a ghost. The juniors
were frankly frightened. They did not dare to go upstairs alone. They
imagined skeleton fingers clutching their legs through the banisters,
or bodiless heads rolling like billiard balls along the landings.
Having listened, awest