And the Gnani, day by day, murmured to _his_ Higher Self,--“She is advancing beautifully.” He noted the sweet trustfulness with which she now leaned upon him--that is, philosophically speaking. “She now Aspires from choice”--he would whisper to himself again and again. “She will lop off several reincarnations, while I--aha! ha ha!”--and his gaseous form would undulate with ethereal ecstasy. In that astral realm where thoughts are things and business is transacted by mental checks, the inhabitants have distinct advantages over mere human beings who are circumscribed by purveyors of goods and settlements on a cash basis. The learned Mystic quite obscured the Mayor of Kankakee. He covered him with humiliation at his own fireside. He trifled with the husband’s prerogatives. For, did the good-natured Bill, thinking to propitiate her on the old lines, send home to Imogene a Paris model from the swell modiste, then did his skillful rival at once materialize for her another headgear out of nothing, a “dream” so unique, so gorgeous, so becoming and so altogether stunning, that Imogene would shriek with delight, while Bill could only grind his teeth in rage. Did the husband bring to his wife a bunch of early violets, the vigilant Gnani would immediately materialize great loads of American beauties towering upon extraordinary stems. He would shower her with Marechal Niels, worth a dollar apiece. With but one sweep of his hand a hundred rare blossoms would descend from the ceiling, covering and enveloping the lady in beauty and bloom. Could any mere, mortal woman withstand such attentions as these? To please her eye this ardent admirer rendered his appearance as alluring as his manners. Independent of tailors, and with everything at hand, this astral man got himself up regardless of expense, and thought on his costumes at will, to meet the requirements of the fashion plates. He frequently would surprise her with rapid transformations of raiments, posing successively in the distinctive garbs of many nations, races and times. Perhaps at breakfast it was some Oriental potentate in royal robes who hovered by her side. At lunch a velvet coated artist, at dinner a gorgeous Indian chief, whose picturesque scalp-lock, beads and feathers and whose thrilling war-whoop delighted her refined taste. And Alonzo would discourse to her oft and long of the beauties and practices of “_Meditation_.” “But I’ll be switched”--she would say at times, “if I can understand your kind of mysticism.” Whereupon the seer, smiling indulgently, would with all perspicuity reply,-- “Of course you don’t. I don’t expect you to. That isn’t what we’re here for. Nobody understands mysticism; for don’t you see, if they did, or could, or were likely to, there wouldn’t be any mysticism left, and then--why, _my_ occupation is _gone_.” “Why, sure; I hadn’t thought of it that way”--his Mate would murmur, and then she would add, “How sweet to be taught by one so wise.”