ily. If they did, they would have to support them, for they could not
ask old Mr. Scott to do it, who hasn't money enough to satisfy his
descendants, and ought not to be expected to support his ancestors."

My letter must have had a good deal of effect upon Mr. Corbridge, for in
less than a week after it was written he came into my office. He
informed me that he and his associates were about to give a series of
seances in our town, but that he had come on before the others in order
to talk to me. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to hear of this
proposed marriage. We want to do what is right and fair, and we have no
desire that any act of ours shall create a widow."

"Then," I exclaimed, "you relinquish your design against Mr.
Kilbright?"

"Not at all," said he. "We shall carry out our plan before our subject
marries. If you choose to hurry up matters and have the wedding take
place before we are ready to proceed with our dematerializing process,
we shall be very sorry, but the blame must rest on you. You should have
had consideration enough for all parties to prevent any such
complication as an engagement to marry. As to what you said in your
letter in regard to invoking the law against us, I attach no weight
whatever to that threat."

"You will find you have made a great mistake," said I, angrily, "when I
have brought the law to bear upon you, which now I shall not delay to
do."

"You will merely bring ridicule upon yourself," he said, "if you assert
that the man you wish to protect is Amos Kilbright. We can prove by
records, still to be seen in Bixbury, that said person died in seventeen
eighty-five. On the other hand, if you choose to assert that he is, or
was, anybody else, how are you going to prove it? All that you can say
is that the person you refer to came from, you knew not where, and has
gone, you know not where. If you declare that at one time he was a
materialized spirit, you know very well how such a statement as that
would be received in a court of law. It will be much wiser to let it be
supposed that the person who has lately been seen about this town has
run off to Canada, than to make any sort of legal inquiry into the
matter. If said person were really a man we could have nothing to do
with his disappearance, while if he were a materialized spirit the law
would have nothing to do with him."

I arose and paced the floor. There was entirely too much force in this
man's arguments, but, although I