sh and mixed confusion of
city society could have been achieved. It is a great thing to
have room for display. There were people enough, not too many;
and almost all of them knew their business. So there was good
dressing and capital acting. The evening would have been a
success, even without the charades on which Mme. Lasalle laid
so much stress.

Dominoes were worn for the greater amusement; and of course
curiosity was busy; but more than curiosity. In the
incongruous fashion common to such entertainments, a handsome
Turkish janissary drew up to a figure draped in dark serge and
with her whole person enveloped in a shapeless mantle of the
same, which was drawn over her head and face.

'I have been puzzling myself for the last quarter of an hour,'
said he, 'to find out--not who--but _what_ you are.'

'Been successful?' said the witch.

'I confess, no. Of course you will not tell me _who_ you are;
but I beg, who do you pretend to be?'

'O, pretend!' said the witch. 'I am "a woman that hath a
familiar spirit!" '

'Where did you pick up your attendant?'

'Came at my call. I suppose you have heard of Endor?'

'Have I? En--dor? Where _have_ I heard that name? It is no place
about here. 'Pon my honour, I forget.'

'In the East?' suggested the witch.

'Stupid!--I know; you are the very person I want to see. But
first I wish you would resolve an old puzzle of mine--Did you
bring up Samuel, honestly?--or was it all smoke?'

'Smoke proves fire.'

'Samuel would not have been in the fire.'

'He would if it was necessary,' said the witch. 'Whom do you
want brought up, Mr. Nightingale?'

'Ha!' said the janissary. 'How do you know that? But perhaps
you are "familiar" with everybody. Bring up Miss Kennedy?'

'Very well,' said the witch, beginning to walk slowly round
him. 'But as it is not certain that Saul saw Samuel, I suppose
it will not matter whether you see her?'

'It matters the whole of it! I want to see her of course.
There is nobody else, in fact, whom I want to see; nor anybody
else worth seeing after her. The rarest, brightest, most
distracting vision that has ever been seen west of your
place.'

'If there is nobody worth seeing after, you had better see
everybody else first,' said the witch, pausing in her round.

'You have a familiar spirit. Tell me what she thinks about me;
will you?'

The witch threw up a handful of sweet pungent dust into the
air, and made another slow round about the jani