acy were in this lovely
creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and
abounding physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom
alone I could compare her. It was a coincidence trifling in comparison
with the general strangeness of the situation, but still striking,
that her name should be Edith.

The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of
social intercourse, but to suppose that our conversation was
peculiarly strained or difficult would be a great mistake. I believe
indeed that it is under what may be called unnatural, in the sense of
extraordinary, circumstances that people behave most naturally, for
the reason, no doubt, that such circumstances banish artificiality. I
know at any rate that my intercourse that evening with these
representatives of another age and world was marked by an ingenuous
sincerity and frankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance. No
doubt the exquisite tact of my entertainers had much to do with this.
Of course there was nothing we could talk of but the strange
experience by virtue of which I was there, but they talked of it with
an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to relieve the
subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny
which might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed
that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another
century, so perfect was their tact.

For my own part, never do I remember the operations of my mind to have
been more alert and acute than that evening, or my intellectual
sensibilities more keen. Of course I do not mean that the
consciousness of my amazing situation was for a moment out of mind,
but its chief effect thus far was to produce a feverish elation, a
sort of mental intoxication.[1]

Edith Leete took little part in the conversation, but when several
times the magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face, I found
her eyes fixed on me with an absorbed intensity, almost like
fascination. It was evident that I had excited her interest to an
extraordinary degree, as was not astonishing, supposing her to be a
girl of imagination. Though I supposed curiosity was the chief motive
of her interest, it could but affect me as it would not have done had
she been less beautiful.

Dr. Leete, as well as the ladies, seemed greatly interested in my
account of the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in the
underground chambe