"I can always get an affirmative answer to that question," she remarked. Then I addressed certain suppositions to her. At last she said, "Yes, you have hit it. It is, as you say, the manner in which the joints of the foot can be used without lifting it from the floor. The power of doing this can only be acquired by practice begun in early youth. One must begin as early as twelve years. Thirteen is rather late. We children, when we were playing together, years ago, discovered it, and it was my eldest sister who first put the discovery to such an infamous use. "I call it infamous, for it was." CHAPTER II. THE DISCOMFITED ENEMY. What has gone before is the whole story, in a sense. The article in the _Herald_ either relates or suggests it. Indeed, no refutation of it has been attempted. If there is one striking negative feature in the circumstances surrounding this exposure of Spiritualism, it is the entire absense of any reply from the great body of professional spiritualists commensurate with the accusation made. This confession of Mrs. Margaret Fox Kane was to them the handwriting on the wall, the "_Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_," of Spiritualism. Leah Fox Fish-Brown-Underhill, who has published a book of the flimsiest and most absurd narrative, intended to be accepted as a proof of Spiritualism, is the one person in all the world who could be expected to defend the system from this fatal attack, if any defense were possible. Reporters of the daily press would have been but too glad to record whatever she might say, were it even the veriest drivel, on an issue that jeopardized the existence of the brazen and pretentious "ism" which, as by an obscene spell, still enlists the curiosity of a great proportion of the world. But as Mrs. Underhill's book itself, which I shall notice more in detail hereafter, shows to the critical mind how futile would be an attempted refutation on her part, the public can very readily understand the reason of this most careful silence. Blunderingly, however, prior to having consulted her, Mr. Daniel Underhill, her husband, consented to talk upon the subject. The statements hostile to Mrs. Kane, to be found in the excerpt here given, were, of course, to be expected. Were they ever so true, however, they could not in any way lesson the damning force of her repentant avowals:-- Mr. Daniel Underhill, president of a wealthy insurance company, whose office is in Wall street, and who is the husband of the eldest of the Fox sisters, whom Margaret declares to be her "damnable enemy," is a Spiritualist, but in a moderate sense. Mrs. Underhill's maiden name was Ann Leah Fox. She was twice married before she met her present husband, and she is twenty-three years older than Margaret.