Miss Ludington's Sister

was that she had not postponed her visit to her, for if she had set it for a single day later she could not have made it at all. When she returne

night's train for Cincinnati, and whether they ever again came East to

address for you. Very likely you have also forgotten by this time our talk about her, and if so it will not matter. But it vexes me to fail in a p

o hope that Mrs. Slater had failed to find the time to write her friend. In that case this extraordinary pro

as to cause her seriously to contemplate such a step. All her life she had held the conviction, which she supposed to be shared by all persons of culture and respectability, that spiritualism was a low and immoral superstition, invariably implying fraud in its profess

ism was by no means so deeply rooted as hers. In a general way he had always believed mediums to be frauds, and their shows mer

ad completely dominated his imagination, and it made little difference whether it was one chance in a thousand or one in a million. He was like the victim of the l

see her face to face had so inflamed his imagination that it was out of the question for him to regain his former serenity. He resolved that, in case they should fail to hear from Mrs. Slater's friend, he would set about

r the séance. The medium had told her at first that she was full of previous engagements for a month ahead, and that it would be impossible to give Miss Ludington a séance. When, however, Mrs. Rhinehart told her that Miss Ludington's purpose in asking for the séance was to test the question whether our past selves have immortal souls distinct from our present selves, Mrs. Legrand became greatly interested, and at once said that she would cancel a previous appointment, and give Miss Ludington a séance the following evening, at her parlours, No. - East Tenth Street, at nine o'clock. Mrs. Legrand had said that while she had never heard a belief in the immort

r fee, say that it was not convenient for them to come on the evening fixed, and so let the matter drop. Paul stared at her in astonishment, and said that, if she did not feel like go

of past selves made it difficult for Miss Ludington to think of her as a mere vulgar impostor. The vague hint of the medium's as to strange experiences with the spirit world, confirmatory of this belief, appealed to her imagination in a powerful manner. Of what description might the mysteri

as the judgment of an expert; it compelled her to recognize not only as possible, but even as probable, that, on the evening of the following da

down, she began to prepare herself for the presence of one f

us expectation. How would his immortal mistress look? How would she move? What would be her stature-what her bea

t each other in their absorption in the thoughts suggested by the approaching event. They sat abstracted and silent at table, and, on

ning she heard Paul leave his room and go downstairs. Putting on dressing-gown and slippers she softly follow

ove, smiling and talking softly to her, Miss Ludington entered the room and laid her hand gently on his arm. Her

d to come down here and look at her. Think, just

ed in a burst of ecstatic tears, and soon afte

hought of the effect which a disappointment of the hope he had given himself up to mi

's fatuous confidence