s."

"Not exactly," replied Rachel, in a timid voice, "but very nearly. Since
I have been ill, I have had a strange power of telling what people were
thinking about: I can sometimes tell the exact words. I cannot tell how
it is. I seem to read them in the air, or to hear them spoken. And I
can always tell if a person is thinking either wicked thoughts or untrue
ones. A wicked person always looks to me like a person in a fog. There
have been some people in this room that my father thought very good; but
I knew they were very bad. I could hardly see their faces clear. When a
person is thinking mistaken or untrue thoughts, I see something like a
shimmer of light all around them: it comes and goes, like a flicker from
a candle. When you first came in to see me, you looked so."

"Pshaw, Rachel," said Hetty, resolutely. "That is all nonsense. It is
just the nervous fancy of a sick girl. You mustn't give way to it."

"I should think so too," replied Rachel, meekly. "If it did not so often
come exactly true. My father will tell you how often we have tried it."

"Well, then, tell me what I was thinking just now," laughed Hetty.

Rachel colored. "I would rather not," she replied, in an earnest tone.

"Oh! you're afraid it won't prove true," said Hetty. "I'll take the
risk, if you will."

Rachel hesitated, but finally repeated her first answer. "I would rather
not."

Hetty persisted, and Rachel, with great reluctance, answered her as
follows:

"You were thinking about yourself: you were dissatisfied about something
in yourself; you are not happy, and you ought to be; you are so good."

Hetty listened with a wonder-struck face. She disliked this more than
she had ever in her life disliked any thing which had happened to her.
She did not speak.

"Do not be angry," said Rachel. "You made me tell you."

"Oh! I am not angry," said Hetty. "I'm not so stupid as that; but it's
the most disagreeable thing, I ever knew. Can you help seeing these
things, if you try?"

"Yes, I suppose I might," said Rachel. "I never try. It interests me to
see what people are thinking about."

"Humph!" said Hetty, sarcastically. "I should think so. You might make
your fortune as a detective, if you were well enough to go about in the
world."

"If I were that, I should lose the power," replied Rachel. "The doctors
say it is part of the disease."

"Rachel," exclaimed Hetty, vehemently, "I'll never come near you again,
if you don't promise no