uaintance for a considerable period, the doctor invariably testifies
the utmost respect for this wealthy, beautiful, and high-placed
Palladian lady, so long protected by a demon, of the superior hierarchy,
and enjoying what he somewhat obscurely terms an obsessional
guardianship. On the 28th of February, 1884, at a theurgic seance of
Templar Mistresses and Elect Magi of Louisville, the ceiling of the
temple was riven suddenly, and Asmodeus, genius of Fire, descended to
slow music, having in one hand a sword, and in the other the long tail
of a lion. He informed the company that there had just been a great
battle between the leaders of Lucifer and Adonai, and that it had been
his personal felicity to lop the Lion's tail of St Mark; he directed the
members of the eleven plus seven triangle to preserve the trophy
carefully, and, that it might not be a lifeless relic, he had
thoughtfully informed it with one of his minor devils until such time as
he himself should intervene to mark his omnipotent favour towards a
certain predestined virgin. The vestal in question was Diana of the
Charlestonians, elect sister in Asmodeus, who at that time was not
affiliated to Palladism. When the doctor subsequently drew her on the
subject of this history, she replied, after the manner of the walrus,
"Do you admire the view?" For himself, the good doctor dislikes the
narrative, not because it does violence to possibility, but because it
did violence to St Mark; there is evidently an incomplete dignity about
a tailless evangelist. As to the tail itself, he has no personal doubt
that it was the property of an ordinary lion, and that it has since
become possessed of a devil.

At the risk of offending Miss Vaughan, the doctor expatiates on her
case, and learnedly demonstrates that her possession is of so
uninterrupted a kind that it has become a second nature, and belongs to
the 5th degree; however this may be, he establishes at great length one
important point in her favour, which has occasioned all French Catholics
to earnestly desire her conversion. I have stated already that the grade
of Templar-Mistress is concerned partly with profanations of the
Eucharist. For example, the aspirant to this initiation is required to
drive a stiletto into the consecrated Host with a becoming expression of
fury. When Miss Vaughan visited Paris in the year 1885, where Miss
Walder had sometime previously established herself, she was invited to
enter this grade