lever girl."

"Oh, she was of an address which was surprising. Sometimes madame and I
were alone. Sometimes there were others, whom madame in her pride had
invited. For she was very proud, monsieur, that her companion could
introduce her to the spirits of dead people. But never was Mlle. Celie
caught out. She told me that for many years, even when quite a child,
she had travelled through England giving these exhibitions."

"Oho!" said Hanaud, and he turned to Wethermill. "Did you know that?"
he asked in English.

"I did not," he said. "I do not now."

Hanaud shook his head.

"To me this story does not seem invented," he replied. And then he
spoke again in French to Helene Vauquier. "Well, continue,
mademoiselle! Assume that the company is assembled for our seance."

"Then Mlle. Celie, dressed in a long gown of black velvet, which set
off her white arms and shoulders well--oh, mademoiselle did not forget
those little trifles," Helene Vauquier interrupted her story, with a
return of her bitterness, to interpolate--"mademoiselle would sail into
the room with her velvet train flowing behind her, and perhaps for a
little while she would say there was a force working against her, and
she would sit silent in a chair while madame gaped at her with open
eyes. At last mademoiselle would say that the powers were favourable
and the spirits would manifest themselves to night. Then she would be
placed in a cabinet, perhaps with a string tied across the door
outside--you will understand it was my business to see after the
string--and the lights would be turned down, or perhaps out altogether.
Or at other times we would sit holding hands round a table, Mlle. Celie
between Mme. Dauvray and myself. But in that case the lights would be
turned out first, and it would be really my hand which held Mme.
Dauvray's. And whether it was the cabinet or the chairs, in a moment
mademoiselle would be creeping silently about the room in a little pair
of soft-soled slippers without heels, which she wore so that she might
not be heard, and tambourines would rattle as you say, and fingers
touch the forehead and the neck, and strange voices would sound from
corners of the room, and dim apparitions would appear--the spirits of
great ladies of the past, who would talk with Mme. Dauvray. Such ladies
as Mme. de Castiglione, Marie Antoinette, Mme. de Medici--I do not
remember all the names, and very likely I do not pronounce them
properly. Then the voic