And there, among strangers and strange scenes she was known as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Mr. Wylie. Teachers were procured for her, and a broader culture and further accomplishments were added to the native graces of our little country girl. Tom and Bess became pleasant memories of that past which now seemed to Tibby so far away, and though she laughed and shed tears occasionally over their misspelled and somewhat illegible letters, she no longer pined for the companions of her childhood. CHAPTER XIV BEFORE THE PUBLIC The large hall of the Lennox is filled with a curious and heterogeneous assemblage of men and women. The majority of those present are believers in spiritism, and ready and more than willing to credit all the phenomena witnessed to spirit agency. A few are there who came in the honest endeavor to learn the truth and to discover if there is something in the mystic realms beyond the sight which may be made clear to their comprehension. There are others, however, who came with malice aforethought, desiring to thwart and expose the trickery which they believe is practised by the medium. Before all this multitude she whom we have called Mrs. Lucien appears to give an exhibition of psychometric reading and slate-writing. She has changed slightly since we saw her. She is even thinner and more ethereal looking than she was then. Her eyes have a pained, timid look in them, as if the life she is leading is fraught with haunting ghosts and mocking spectres, with tortured nerves and sleepless nights. Mrs. Lucien has had much to cause her extreme dejection and pain. These exhibitions which she gives are for the most part but as dreams to her. She has little realization of what she says or does in the trance state into which she passes. But it has happened once or twice that she has been unable to become fully passive and entranced. Then she has been obliged to simulate such a condition or wholly disappoint her audience and make an utter failure of her work. It is the fear of this deception, to which she may be compelled to resort at any time, which frightens her and fills her with self-loathing. She has that fear upon her now as she comes forward and sits down before the audience, her pale face waxen in the gaslight. If she should fail! She sits very still, seeking to hold her thoughts in abeyance, that she may woo that sweet forgetfulness and waking dream which reveals to her the mysteries of the invisible. It is coming. Her hands grow cold and sink weightily upon her lap. She feels the mystic power enveloping her, creeping down, over and around her. The lights grow dimmer and dimmer. Her eyelids are freighted with leaden compresses. Soon eyes and ears are closed to all external sights and sounds. Strange melodies, fitful and harmonious, sound within, and strange lights, like electric sparks, flash across and illumine the recesses of her brain.