next my daughter? And Mr. Phillips on my left, here? And you, Mr. Ford, on Miss Smiley's left, next to Mr. Eccles? Mr. Hatch, take your place between those two ladies "—
"I'm there, doctor, every time," said Mr. Hatch, promptly obeying.
"I must protest at the outset, Dr. Boynton," began Mr. Eccles, "against this sort of"—
"Beg pardon. You're right, Eccles," said Hatch; "I won't do it anymore. But when I get down at a table like this, I feel gay, and I can't help running over a little. But no spilling's the word now. Do we join hands, doctor, comme à l'ordinaire?"
"Yes, all join hands, please," answered the doctor.
"Well, I want these ladies to promise not to squeeze my hands, either of them," said Hatch. The ladies laughed, and Mr. Eccles, relinquishing the hands of the persons next him, made a movement to rise, in which he was met by an imploring downward wave of Dr. Boynton's hand.
"Please, Mr. Eccles, remain. Mr. Hatch, I may trust your kindness? Miss Merrill, will you sing—ah—something?"
A small, cheerful lady, on the sunny side of thirty, with a pair of spectacles gleaming on her amiable nose, responded to this last appeal. " I think we had better all sing, doctor."
"I have a theory in wishing you to sing alone," said the doctor.
"Oh, very well!" Miss Merrill acquiesced.
"Have you any preference?"
" No. Anything devotional."
"'Maiden's Prayer,' Miss Merrill," suggested Hatch.
This overcast Mr. Eccles again, but Miss Merrill took the fun in good part, and laughed.
"I don't believe you know anything about devotional music, Mr. Hatch," she said.
"That's so. My repertoire is out already," owned Hatch.
Miss Merrill raised her spectacles thoughtfully to the ceiling, and after a moment began to sing "Flee as a Bird to your Mountain," in a sweet contralto. As the thrilling tones filled the room all other sounds were quelled; the circle at the table became motionlessly silent, and the long sighing breath of the listeners alone made itself heard in the pauses of the singing. Before the words died away, a draught of cold air struck across the room, and through the door at the head of the table, which unclosed mysteriously, as if blown open by the wind, a figure in white was seen in the passage without. It drifted nearer, and with a pale green scarf over her shoulders Egeria softly and waveringly entered the room. Her face was white, and her eyes had the still, sightless look of those who walk in their sleep. She advanced, and sank into the chair between her father and Mrs. Merrifield, and at the same moment that groaning and straining sound was heard, as if in the fibers of the wood; and then the sounds grew sharper and more distinct, and a continuous rapping seemed to cover the whole surface of the table, with a noise like that of heavy clots of snow driving against a window pane.
As Egeria took the chair left vacant for her, it could be seen that another had also found a place in the circle. This was a very large, dark woman of some fifty years, who silently saluted some of the company, half withdrawing from their sight as she sat down next to Mrs. Merrifield, behind the box.
Egeria remained staring blankly before her for a moment. Then she said in a weary voice, "They are here."
"Who are, my daughter?" demanded her father.
In a long sigh, "Legion," she responded.
"We may thank Mr. Hatch for the company we are in," Mr. Eccles broke out resentfully. "I have protested—"
"Patience,—a little patience, Mr. Eccles!" implored Dr. Boynton. Then, without changing his polite tone, " Look again, Egeria," he said. "Are they all evil?"
"Their name is legion," wearily answered the girl, as before.
" Yes, yes, Egeria. They always come at first. But is there no hope of help against them? Look again,—look carefully."
"The innumerable host "—
"I knew it,—I knew it!" exulted the doctor.
"Disperses them," said the girl, and lapsed into a silence which she did not break again.
At a sign from the large woman, who proved to be Mrs. Le Roy, Dr. Boynton said, " Will you sing again, Miss Merrill?"
Miss Merrill repeated the closing stanza of the hymn she had already sung.
While she sang, flitting gleams of white began to relieve themselves against the black interior of the-box. They seemed to gather shape and substance; as the singing ceased, the little hand of a child moved slowly back and forth in the gloom.
A moan broke from one of the women. "Oh, I hope it's for me!" she quavered.
They began, one after another, to ask, "Is it for me?" the hand continuing to wave softly to and fro. When it came the turn of this woman, the hand was violently agitated; she burst into tears. "It's my Lily, my darling little Lily."
The apparition beckoned to the speaker.
"You can touch it," said the doctor.
The woman bent over the table, and thrust her hand into the box; the apparition melted away; a single fragrant tuberose was flung upon the table. "Oh, oh!" sobbed the woman. "My Lily's favorite flower! She always liked snowdrops above everything, because they came the first thing in the spring. Oh, to think she can come to me,— to know that she is living yet, and can never die! I'm sure I felt her little hand an instant,—so smooth and soft, so cold!"
"They always seem to be cold," philosophized Boynton. " A more exquisite vitality coming in contact with our own would naturally give the sensation of cold. But you must sit down now, Mrs. Blodgett," added the doctor, kindly. "Look! There is another hand."
A large wrinkled hand, like that of an elderly woman, crept tremulously through the opening of the box, sank, and then creeping upward again laid its fingers out over the edge of the opening. No one recognized it, and it would have won no general acclaim if Mrs. Merrifield had not called attention to the lace which encircled the wrist; she caught a bit of this between her thumb and finger, and detained it a moment while the other ladies bent over and examined it. There was but one voice; it was real lace.
One hand after another now appeared in the box, some of them finding a difficulty in making their way up through the aperture, which had been formed by cutting across in the figure of an X the black cloth which had lined the bottom of the box, and which now hung down in triangular flaps. The slow and feeble effort of the apparitions to free themselves from these dangling pieces of cloth heightened their effectiveness. From time to time a hand violently responded to the demand from one of the circle, "Is it for me?" and several persons were allowed to place their hands in the box and touch the materializations. These persons testified that they felt a distinct pressure from the spectral hands.
"Would you like to try, Mr. Phillips?" politely asked the doctor.
"Thanks, yes," said Phillips, after a hesitation. He put his hand into the box: the apparitional hand, apparently that of a young girl, dealt him a flying touch, and vanished. Phillips nervously withdrew his hand.
"Did you feel it?" inquired Dr. Boynton.
"Yes,"
