Her tears and entreaties were pitiable to see and listen to, and for a while, the men thought their endeavours had been in vain. But when she was a little quieter, the Doctor took her in hand, and having commenced his practice by the administration of a composing draught, he explained to her, after his own fashion, that he and his friend only meant kindness by her, and wanted to cure the very things of which she complained. If she would place herself under their guidance, he said, he would guarantee to send her back to her family, quite cured of the annoyance she objected to. Hannah opened her beautiful eyes wide, and listened. To be cured meant to be in favour again with Joe’s people, and perhaps to become Joe’s wife much sooner than she anticipated. “But how can you cure me, Sir?” she asked, wonderingly. “It’s summat in my fingers as makes the things dance! I don’t do nothing, Sir, I assures you, and I ’ates it, I do, like cold pison.” “Then you’ll be all the better pleased to get rid of it, Hannah,” he replied, “but that is quite impossible unless you will give way to the feeling at first, and let me see just how it acts. Now! don’t be frightened when you see the articles approach you! The Professor and I do not scream and run away. Stay by us, and let them do as they choose!” “But I can’t, Sir,” cried the girl, breathlessly, as she attempted to evade the close attentions of an arm-chair, “they frightens me out of my wits. I wonder whatever I’ve done that dumb brutes won’t leave me alone.” But though Hannah, with the assistance of her new friends, managed to set all the furniture in the room spinning, without being more alarmed than was evinced by her gasping and screaming and clutching either one or other of them by the arm, nothing would induce her to enter the séance room. As soon as the door was opened and she saw the black funereal hangings, she gave a shriek, and fell backwards into the Doctor’s arms. “In there?” she screamed, “but what for? I’ve never been in sich a dark ’ole in all my life! And what do you want to do with me there? Are you going to cut me up? O! Mrs. Battleby! Mrs. Battleby!” Her yells alarmed the two scientists, who feared all their plans would be knocked on the head by an untimely irruption on the part of the landlady. So they slammed the door to, and pulled Hannah into the lighted room again, and tried to compose her by slapping her on the back and addressing her with soothing words. The girl lay in the arm-chair in which they had placed her, seemingly more dead than alive. Fearing that the shock had really injured her, they were just about to call for help, when a gruff, manly voice spoke at a distance of two or three feet above her head. “Don’t be fools! Leave her alone! She’ll go into the cabinet when I tell her to do so.”