ooding eyes, and the fine forehead on
which, like a crown, rested the black waves of her hair.

In her work Vera accepted, without question, the parts to which Vance
assigned her. When in their mummeries they were successful, she neither
enjoyed the credulity of those they had tricked nor was sobered with
remorse. In the world Vance found a certain number of people with money
who demanded to be fooled. It was his business and hers to meet that
demand. If ever the conscience of either stirred restlessly, Vance
soothed it by the easy answer that if they did not take the money some
one else would. It was all in the day's work. It was her profession.

As she entered the library of Mr. Hallowell, which, with Vance, she
already had visited several times, she looked like a child masquerading
in her mother's finery. She suggested an ingenue who had been suddenly
sent on in the role of the Russian adventuress. Her slight girl's figure
was draped in black lace. Her face was shaded by a large picture
hat, heavy with drooping ostrich feathers; around her shoulders was a
necklace of jade, and on her wrists many bracelets of silver gilt. When
she moved they rattled. As the girl advanced, smiling, to greet Mr.
Hallowell, she suddenly stopped, shivered slightly, and threw her right
arm across her eyes. Her left arm she stretched over the table.

"Give me your hand!" she commanded. Dubiously, with a watchful glance at
Vance, Mr. Hallowell leaned forward and took her hand.

"You have been ill," cried the girl; "very ill--I see you--I see you
in a kind of faint--very lately." Her voice rose excitedly. "Yes, last
night."

Mr. Hallowell protested with indignation. "You read that in the morning
paper," he said.

Vera lowered her arm from her eyes and turned them reproachfully on him.

"I don't read the Despatch," she answered.

Mr. Hallowell drew back suspiciously. "I didn't say it was the
Despatch," he returned.

Vance quickly interposed. "You don't have to say it," he explained
with glibness; "you thought it. And Vera read your thoughts. You
were thinking of the Despatch, weren't you? Well, there you are! It's
wonderful!"

"Wonderful? Nonsense!" mocked Mr. Hallowell. "She did read it in the
paper or Rainey told her."

The girl shrugged her shoulders patiently. "If you would rather find
out you were ill from the newspapers than from the spirit world," she
inquired, "why do you ask me here?"

"I ask you here, young woman," exc