e had been greatly
attached to his wife, and had furnished these rooms to suit her fancy. He
was a scientific man, and much more devoted to making curious experiments
than he was to the ordinary practice of medicine and surgery. In a small
room on this floor, at the very back of the house, was Donna Paltravi, in
a box."

"Was she dead?" exclaimed the Daughter of the House.

"It was believed by Dr. Torquino that she was not, but he could not be
sure of it."

"And her husband?" asked the elder lady. "Was he dead?"

"No," replied the gardener; "at least, there was no reason to suppose
so. About forty years before the time of this story he had left
Florence, and this was the way of it: Donna Paltravi was a young and
handsome woman, but her health was not as satisfactory as it might have
been, for she had a tendency to fall into swoons, and to remain in
them, sometimes for many hours, coming out of a trance as lively as
before she went into it. Now this disposition had a powerful effect upon
her husband, and he studied her very closely, with an interest which
almost devoured the other powers of his mind. He experimented upon her,
and became so expert that he not only could bring her out of her trances
whenever he chose, but he could keep her in them; and this he did,
sometimes as long as a week, in order to prove to himself that he could
do it."

"Shame upon him!" exclaimed the Daughter of the House.

"Never mind," said her mother; "let John go on."

"Well," continued the gardener, "the old doctor told Jaqui a great many
things about Paltravi and his wife, and how she came to be at that time
in the box. Paltravi had conceived a great scheme, one which he had
believed might have immense influence on the happiness of the world. He
determined that when his wife next went into a trance he would try to
keep her so for fifty years, and then revive her, in the midst of her
youth and beauty, to enjoy the world as she should find it."

"There was nothing new about that," said the Mistress of the House.
"That is a very old story, and the thing has been written about again
and again and again."

"That is very true, madam," answered John Gayther, "and Dr. Paltravi had
heard many such stories, but most of them were founded upon traditions
and myths and the vaguest kind of hearsay, and some were no more than
the fancies of story-tellers. But the doctor wanted to work on solid
and substantial ground, and he believed that his wif