ant mind
as he lay baking his brains by the wide fire in the old stone house at the
head of the hollow, while his father read, haltingly, of the wonders of
the invisible world.

But, to his great mortification, he saw nothing, heard nothing,
experienced nothing but in the company of others. He must brave the
ridicule of the profane to taste the raptures which his soul loved. His
simple, trusting faith made him inevitably the butt of the mischievous
circle. They were not slow in discovering his extreme sensibility to
external influences. One muscular, black-haired, heavy-browed youth took
especial delight in practicing upon him. The table, under Gershom's
tremulous hands, would skip like a lamb at the command of this Thomas Fay.

One evening, Tom Fay had a great triumph. They had been trying to get the
"medium"--for Gershom had reached that dignity--to answer sealed
questions, and had met with indifferent success. Fay suddenly approached
the table, scribbled a phrase, folded it and tossed it, doubled up, before
Gershom; then leaned over the table, staring at his pale, unwholesome face
with all the might of his black eyes.

Chaney seized the pencil convulsively and wrote, "Balaam!"

Fay burst into a loud laugh and said, "Read the question?"

It was, "Who rode on your grandfather's back?"

This is a specimen of the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor
Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended,
but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen
counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and
incorrigible indolence. He accepted his disgrace as a crown of martyrdom,
and went proudly home to his sympathizing parents.

Here, with less criticism and more perfect faith, he renewed the exercise
of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and
want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to
make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings
and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as
evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an
oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they
expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time
to the circle, and their reports heightened the half-uncanny interest with
which the Chaney house was regarded.

It was on a moist and steamy evening of spring that Al