ttle while ago."

Maggie smiled.

"I wonder what she'll talk about," she said.

"I hope she won't be very advanced," went on the old lady. "And you
think I'd better not tell her about Laurie?"

"I'm sure it's best not," said the girl, "or she'll tell him about
Deep Breathing, or saying Om, or something. No; I should let Laurie
alone."

* * * * *

It was a little before one o'clock that the motor arrived, and that
there descended from it at the iron gate a tall, slender woman, hooded
and veiled, who walked up the little path, observed by Maggie from her
bedroom, with a kind of whisking step. The motor moved on, wheeled in
through the gates at the left, and sank into silence in the
stable-yard.

"It's too charming of you, dear Mrs. Baxter," Maggie heard as she came
into the drawing-room a minute or two later, "to let me come over like
this. I've heard so much about this house. Lady Laura was telling me
how very psychical it all was."

"My adopted daughter, Miss Deronnais," observed the old lady.

Maggie saw a rather pretty, passe face, triangular in shape, with
small red lips, looking at her, as she made her greetings.

"Ah! how perfect all this is," went on the guest presently, looking
about her, "how suggestive, how full of meaning!"

She threw back her cloak presently, and Maggie observed that she was
busy with various very beautiful little emblems--a scarab, a snake
swallowing its tail, and so forth--all exquisitely made, and hung upon
a slender chain of some green enamel-like material. Certainly she was
true to type. As the full light fell upon her it became plain that
this other-worldly soul did not disdain to use certain toilet
requisites upon her face; and a curious Eastern odor exhaled from her
dress.

Fortunately, Maggie had a very deep sense of humor, and she hardly
resented all this at all, nor even the tactful hints dropped from time
to time, after the conventional part of the conversation was over, to
the effect that Christianity was, of course, played out, and that a
Higher Light had dawned. Mrs. Stapleton did not quite say this
outright, but it amounted to as much. Even before Laurie came
downstairs it appeared that the lady did not go to church, yet that,
such was her broad-mindedness, she did not at all object to do so. It
was all one, it seemed, in the Deeper Unity. Nothing particular was
true; but all was very suggestive and significant and symbolical of