When she rang Mademoiselle Trompere's bell this second time, the summons was answered by a little girl, who conducted her into the salon. On entering, she perceived the old man whom she had before seen, writing at a table covered with papers and large books, many of the latter being open. A young woman, dressed in black, and of genteel appearance, but the expression of whose features Julienne did not altogether like, was sitting by the window busied with her crotchet-needles. The latter personage rose from her seat, and inclined her head to Julienne. "Madame Folitton?" "Yes." "My father has prepared me to expect you. I was much engaged when you came the other day, but now I am at your service." She touched the old man whom she called father upon the shoulder, but she had to repeat the operation twice or thrice ere he turned his eyes from his manuscript, so profoundly was his attention engaged thereon. He shifted his position slowly, raised his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes like one awakened from a dream. "He studies much," said Mademoiselle Trompere to Julienne, as if by way of apology for the old man's abstraction. "Do you see?--here is Madame Folitton." "Ah, it is well!" exclaimed he, as, with half sigh half smile, he advanced to the young visitor and shook her hand. "She comes to consult you, my child, as I have told you; and I half suspect the little lady is not so anxious for the mere solving of what seems a riddle to her, as she is to test the truth of clairvoyance; so we must be upon our metal. Saucy little bird! She is not the only one who doubts the wondrous insight into the mysteries of nature which science has in our day obtained." Mademoiselle Trompere, the somnambule, then deposited herself in a large and handsome armchair, softly cushioned in crimson velvet. She sat upright for a while, and the old man and his daughter looked fixedly at each other, while the former passed his right hand slowly up and down before her face. After eight or ten "passes," her eyes suddenly closed, her face grew white as death, and she sank back in an attitude of complete repose. The old man continued making the "passes" for a minute or two longer, and then going softly round to the back of the somnambule, laid his hand lightly upon her head. "Mademoiselle is now ready for your interrogations," said he to Julienne. Poor Julienne was frightened, and had she known beforehand that such a mysterious operation as she had just witnessed would have been necessary to the gratification of her whim, she would rather a thousand times have let it remain unsatisfied. So flurried was she, that she knew not what to ask, and would have been very glad to have paid her fee at once and gone home again without testing the _lucidité extrême_. As if divining her thoughts, the old man turned them into a different channel by himself asking the question which Julienne had intended. "Can you give your visitor any information respecting M. Folitton at St. Cloud?"