ed you for it, and loved you again for it, because you
were so delightfully and blindly unaware of what you were doing."

"I'm almost bursting with vanity from listening to you," he laughed,
passing his arm around her and drawing her against him.

"Yes," she whispered, "and in this very moment, when you are laughing at
all that I have said, you, the feel of you, your soul,--call it what you
will, it is you,--is calling for all the love that is in me."

She leaned more closely against him, and sighed as with fatigue. He
breathed a kiss into her hair and held her with firm tenderness.

Aunt Mildred stirred briskly and looked up from the Planchette board.

"Come, let us begin," she said. "It will soon grow chilly. Robert, where
are those children?"

"Here we are," Lute called out, disengaging herself.

"Now for a bundle of creeps," Chris whispered, as they started in.

Lute's prophecy of the manner in which her lover would be received
was realized. Mrs. Grantly, unreal, unhealthy, scintillant with frigid
magnetism, warmed and melted as though of truth she were dew and he sun.
Mr. Barton beamed broadly upon him, and was colossally gracious. Aunt
Mildred greeted him with a glow of fondness and motherly kindness, while
Uncle Robert genially and heartily demanded, "Well, Chris, my boy, and
what of the riding?"

But Aunt Mildred drew her shawl more closely around her and hastened
them to the business in hand. On the table was a sheet of paper. On the
paper, rifling on three supports, was a small triangular board. Two of
the supports were easily moving casters. The third support, placed at
the apex of the triangle, was a lead pencil.

"Who's first?" Uncle Robert demanded.

There was a moment's hesitancy, then Aunt Mildred placed her hand on the
board, and said: "Some one has always to be the fool for the delectation
of the rest."

"Brave woman," applauded her husband. "Now, Mrs. Grantly, do your
worst."

"I?" that lady queried. "I do nothing. The power, or whatever you care
to think it, is outside of me, as it is outside of all of you. As to
what that power is, I will not dare to say. There is such a power. I
have had evidences of it. And you will undoubtedly have evidences of
it. Now please be quiet, everybody. Touch the board very lightly, but
firmly, Mrs. Story; but do nothing of your own volition."

Aunt Mildred nodded, and stood with her hand on Planchette; while the
rest formed about her in a silent and exp