With astonishing clearness this voice created in my mind (not as light would create it) the vision of a self-contained, womanly little girl, whose voice and accent formed a curious silvery replica of the psychic's, and yet I could not say that the psychic's vocal organs gave out these words. At last she said "_Good-bye_," and the cone was softly laid upon the table. All of this was performed in profound silence. There was no sound in the cone, except that of the voice, no rustle of garments, no grasp of fingers on the tin; and though I leaned far over, and once more placed my ear close to the psychic's lips, I could not trace the slightest movement connecting her with the movements on the table. I had the conviction at the moment that she sat in a death-like trance at my side. A few moments later the cone was jammed together and thrown upon the floor--a movement, I had learned to know, that announced that the sitting was ended. While the sitters still waited, I said: "Now, Cameron, you may turn on the gas, but do so very slowly. Mrs. Smiley seems in deep sleep, and we are warned not to startle her." When the light became strong enough to see a form, we found our psychic sitting limply, her head drooping sidewise, her eyes closed, her face white and calm. The cone was lying not far from her chair, separated into two parts. The threads that bound her to her seat were to all appearance precisely as at the beginning of the sitting, except that they were deeply sunk into the flesh of her wrists. Her chair had not moved a hair's-breadth from the chalk-marks on the floor. A moment later she opened her eyes, and, smiling rather wanly, asked of me: "Did anything happen?" "Oh yes, a great deal. 'Wilbur' came, and 'Maud,' and 'Mr. Mitchell.'" "I am very glad," she answered, with a faint, happy smile. Mrs. Cameron bent to her pityingly. "How do you feel?" "Very numb, but I'll be all right in a very short time. My wrists hurt; your thread is very tight. My arms always swell. Please give me a drink of water." As I held the glass to her lips I was conscience-smitten to think that for five hours she had been sitting in this constrained position--a martyr to science; but I deferred the moment of her release till Miller had examined every bond. I used a small pair of scissors to cut the thread out of the deep furrows in her wrist, and it took a quarter of an hour of chafing to restore her arms to their normal condition, all of which had a convincing effect upon the doubters. Miss Brush was indignant. "I think it is a shame the way you have treated your psychic." "Oh, this is nothing," responded Mrs. Smiley. "I'd be unhappy and uneasy if you didn't tie me. I'm like the old man's chickens (you've heard the story?): he had moved so much that the chickens, whenever they saw him put a cover on his wagon, would lie down and cross their feet to be tied."