t the Dialectical Society was getting into
action, Flammarion, the astronomer, took up his study of the subject.
But it was not until 1891 that anything like Crookes's searching
analysis was made of a medium. This important sitting--a sitting which
marks an epoch in science--took place in Milan, and was attended, among
others, by Lombroso and Richet. For the first time, so far as is known,
a flash-light photograph was taken of a table floating in the air."

At this moment the bell rang, and Mrs. Cameron exclaimed: "There! that
may be your wonder-worker."

I looked at my watch. "I shouldn't wonder. She is a prompt little
person."

III

We trooped into the sitting-room, where Mrs. Smiley, a plain little
woman with a sweet mouth and bright black eyes, was awaiting us. She was
perceptibly abashed by the keen glances that the men directed upon her,
but her manners were those of one natively thoughtful and refined. She
made an excellent impression on every one.

"Did you bring your magic horn, Mrs. Smiley?" I asked, to relieve her
embarrassment.

"Oh yes!" she answered, brightly. "I carry that just as a fiddler
carries his fiddle--ready for a tune at any moment."

She brought a large package from the foot of the sofa and gave it to me.
I took it, but turned it over to Miller. "Here, open this parcel
yourself, Mr. Scientist. I want you to be satisfied as to its
character."

Miller undid the package as cautiously as if it were an infernal
machine. As the paper opened and fell away, a short, truncated cone of
tin was disclosed, with another smaller one loosely held within it. The
two sections, when adjusted, made a plain megaphone, about twenty-four
inches in length and some five inches in diameter at the larger end.

"What do you do with that?" asked Mrs. Cameron.

In a perfectly matter-of-fact way Mrs. Smiley replied: "Many of the
spirit voices are very faint, and cannot be heard without this horn. I
am what they call a 'trumpet medium,'" she added, in further
explanation.

"Do you mean to say spirits speak through that horn?"

"Yes. That is my 'phone.'"

The ladies looked at one another, and Harris said: "Isn't it rather
absurd to expect an immaterial mouth to speak through a tin tube, like
the grocer's boy?"

She smiled composedly. "I suppose it seems so to you, but to me it just
happens."

I set briskly to work arranging the library for the circle. In the
middle of the room I placed a plain oake