Miss Robet has caught his idea, and elaborates it. “When I go into court, the good word shall be welfare; when I come out—farewell,” and is gone. Dear Robet, what is her secret sorrow, that she hides in her tender breast? Her genial soul should have no rebuff. Why is her intended away, as I have heard? Quite changeable in mood, as is Show Off, her great chum, who gets it from his mother, the latter a triplet sister with Robet, and now on a visit to the other triplet sister. We now give attention to the story before us, but so loudly sounds a refrain in my ears, “Savant before you is the greatest of living men,” until I become impatient, and ask, “how great?” “Ask him hidden knowledge,” refrains back to me. What can it mean? I will treat him to some unsettled points in spiritual doctrine to test his lore. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Immortality of the soul is an universal instinct. _Phil. Schaff, D. D._ Looking to where he sits, I study one in my mind, and observe father sees my abstraction. I can tell by a wrinkling around his eyes, he is preparing himself for enjoyment of the debate. “What is the breath of life?” I at last ask ingenuously. “Oh, I can answer that. I have found it out since I have been here. That is an easy question. It is, my dear, electricity, which we assimilate into spirit. Simple in explanation. The electric soul batteries of our organism thus supplied by God, the maker of souls, drawn in with our breath.” Quite suavely preaches my father to me. “Yes, but there are two electricities; how could we take both and live?” “There are two electricities, assuredly. They assimilate; the assimilation is life.” I feel dubious, but see clearer as he proceeds. “The earth has negative electricity, the other positive, or masculine, comes from the sun, uniting to life.” Suddenly I burst out, “That makes the sun our father. Pray, who is God, who made the sun?” The eye wrinkle deepens. “In that case, our grandfather.” I scorn to smile. “Does this soul life have bodily sense after death?” I again venture a second question. “Yes, and bodily sustenance in the air, where is body material, tho’ invisible.” I clasp my hands to my head, and rush out of the room. But close behind me is Savant, who is pleased to wish more acquaintance.