The roar was terrific. The windows rattled and the whole building seemed to shake. The effect upon the group in the parlor, leaning forward in awed expectation to catch the message from beyond, was upsetting, literally and figuratively. Miss Tamson Black, perched upon the slippery cushion of a rickety and unstable music stool, slid to the floor with a most unspiritual thump and a shrill squeal. Primmie clutched her next-door neighbor--it chanced to be Mr. Augustus Cabot--by the middle of the waistcoat, and hers was no light clutch. Mr. Abel Harding shouted several words at the top of his lungs; afterward there was some dispute as to just what the exact words were, but none whatever as to their lack of propriety. Almost every one jumped or screamed or exclaimed. Only Captain Jeth Hallett, who had heard that horn many, many times, was quite unmoved. Even his daughter was startled. But perhaps the most surprising effect of the mammoth “toot” was that which it produced in the spirit world. It seemed to blow Little Cherry Blossom completely back to her own sphere, for it was a voice neither Chinese nor ethereal which, coming from Miss Hoag's lips, shrieked wildly: “Oh, my good land of love! Wh--what's that?” It was only after considerable pounding of the table and repeated orders for silence that Captain Jethro succeeded in obtaining it. Then he explained concerning the foghorn. “It'll blow every minute from now on, I presume likely,” he growled, “but I don't see as that need to make any difference about our goin' on with this meetin'. That is, unless Marietta minds. Think 'twill bother you about gettin' back into the trance state, Marietta?” Erastus Beebe had turned up one of the lamps and it happened to be the one just above Miss Hoag's head. By its light Martha Phipps could see the medium's face, and it seemed to her--although, as she admitted afterward, perhaps because of subsequent happenings she only imagined that it seemed so--it seemed to her that Marietta was torn between an intense desire to give up mediumizing for that evening and a feeling that she must go on. “She looked to me,” said Martha, “as if she was afraid to go on, but more afraid to stop.” However, go on she did. She told the light keeper that she guessed she could get back if Tamson would play a little spell more. Miss Black agreed to do so, provided she might have a chair instead of a music stool. “I wouldn't risk settin' on that plaguy, slippery haircloth thing again for no mortal soul,” declared the irate Tamson, meaning, doubtless, to include immortals. A chair was provided, again the lights were dimmed, and the seance resumed, punctuated now at minute intervals by the shattering bellows of the great foghorn.