e by
one at the table. It did not trouble him that another family in Avenue C
was in agonized waiting for his presence, and that haste or delay might
make the difference between life and death to a human being. This was
not heartlessness, but a condition of his living and working--a
postponement of particular service, however important, in favor of the
general serviceableness of his life.

Millard was not sorry for the delay; it gave him time to dispose of Miss
Bowyer.

Seeing that Phillida had gone to seek re-enforcements, Mrs. Martin had
concluded that, in Tommy's interest, a truce would be the better thing.
So, while Miss Bowyer was seeking to induce in little Tommy the
impressible conscious state--or, to be precise, the conscious, passive,
impressible state--Mrs. Martin offered to hold him in her arms. To this
the metaphysical healer assented with alacrity, as likely to put the
child into a favorable condition for the exercise of her occult
therapeutic powers.

"Hold him with his back to the north, Mrs. Martin," she said; "there, in
a somewhat reclining posture; that will increase his susceptibility to
psychic influence. There is no doubt that the magnetism of the earth has
a polar distribution. It is quite probable also that the odylic
emanation of the terrestrial magnet has also a polar arrangement. Does
the little fellow ever turn round in his bed at night?"

"Yes."

"That shows that he is sensitive to magnetic influences. He is trying to
get himself north and south, so as to bring the body into harmony with
the magnetic poles of the earth. You see the brain is normally positive.
We wish to invert the poles of the body, and send the magnetism of the
brain to the feet."

Miss Bowyer now took out a small silver cross and held it up before the
child a little above the natural range of vision.

"Will you look at this, little boy?" she said.

She did her best to make her naturally unsympathetic voice persuasive,
even to pronouncing the last word of her entreaty "baw-ee." But the
"little baw-ee" was faint with sickness, and he only lifted his eyes a
moment to the trinket, and then closed the eyelids and turned his face
toward his mother's bosom.

"Come, little baw-ee. Look at this, my child. Isn't it pretty? Little
baw-ee, see here!"

But the little baw-ee wanted rest, and he showed no signs of having
heard Miss Bowyer's appeal, except that he fretted with annoyance after
each sentence she addressed to hi