woman who tells fortunes. Anna was of
strong South German Catholic religion and the german priests in the
churches always said that it was very bad to do things so. But what
else now could the good Anna do? She was so mixed and bothered in her
mind, and troubled with this life that was all wrong, though she did
try so hard to do the best she knew. "All right, Mrs. Lehntman," Anna
said at last, "I think I go there now with you."

This woman who told fortunes was a medium. She had a house in the
lower quarter of the town. Mrs. Lehntman and the good Anna went to
her.

The medium opened the door for them herself. She was a loose made,
dusty, dowdy woman with a persuading, conscious and embracing manner
and very greasy hair.

The woman let them come into the house.

The street door opened straight into the parlor, as is the way in the
small houses of the south. The parlor had a thick and flowered carpet
on the floor. The room was full of dirty things all made by hand. Some
hung upon the wall, some were on the seats and over backs of chairs
and some on tables and on those what-nots that poor people love. And
everywhere were little things that break. Many of these little things
were broken and the place was stuffy and not clean.

No medium uses her parlor for her work. It is always in her eating
room that she has her trances.

The eating room in all these houses is the living room in winter. It
has a round table in the centre covered with a decorated woolen cloth,
that has soaked in the grease of many dinners, for though it should be
always taken off, it is easier to spread the cloth upon it than change
it for the blanket deadener that one owns. The upholstered chairs are
dark and worn, and dirty. The carpet has grown dingy with the food
that's fallen from the table, the dirt that's scraped from off the
shoes, and the dust that settles with the ages. The sombre greenish
colored paper on the walls has been smoked a dismal dirty grey, and
all pervading is the smell of soup made out of onions and fat chunks
of meat.

The medium brought Mrs. Lehntman and our Anna into this eating room,
after she had found out what it was they wanted. They all three sat
around the table and then the medium went into her trance.

The medium first closed her eyes and then they opened very wide and
lifeless. She took a number of deep breaths, choked several times and
swallowed very hard. She waved her hand back every now and then, and
she