, and accepted the offer. A seance for initiation was
held accordingly, but Miss Vaughan would have none of profanation, and
refused blankly to stultify her liberal intelligence by the stabbing of
a wheaten wafer. She did not believe in the Real Presence, and she did
not wish to be childish. A great sensation followed; her initiation was
postponed; appeal was made to Charleston; and the formality was
dispensed with in her case by the intervention, as it was supposed at
the moment, of Albert Pike's authority, even as her Father's
intervention had excused her beforehand from another ordeal which could
not be suffered with propriety. This episode implanted in the breast of
Sophia Walder an extreme form of Palladian hatred for the Diana of
Philalethes. Now, Sophia was in high favour with all the hosts of
perdition, yet her rancorous relations with her sister Adept did not
make Diana less a _persona grata_ to the peculiar intelligence which
governs the descending hierarchy. In the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky the
Palladian Magi and the Mistress Templars decided one day to have a
little experiment with the Undines, so they shouldered their magical
instruments; but the eager elementaries, habiting the dark abysses, did
not wait to be evoked; the water bubbled in the Lake, the roof was
constellated with stars, and who should appear but Asmodeus, on the bank
opposite, in all his infernal glory! With open arms he loudly called on
Diana, and that lady, suddenly transfigured, walked calmly over the
water, and kissed the feet of her demon, who incontinently vanished.
Inspired by a sense of deficiency, the doctor says that the visit to the
Mammoth Cave terminated without any further incident. He was not an
ocular witness of what he relates in this instance, but he received it
from the lips of Diana, and the lips of Diana, in the opinion of all
honourable men, would be preferable to the eyes of the doctor.

But the doctor had the testimony of his eyes upon another occasion; it
is known that Miss Vaughan's celebrity began with her hostility to the
Italian Grand Master, Adriano Lemmi. When the seat of the Sovereign
Pontificate, as deponents testify, was removed from Charleston, the
great city of Lucifer, even unto the Eternal City, and many adepts
demissioned, there was a doubt in the rebel camp as to the continued
protection of Lucifer. If Diabolus had gone over to Lemmi, they were
indeed bereft. Miss Vaughan, however, remained calm and san