The young ladies themselves seemed to enjoy the confusion they caused, and dressed always in twin gowns, imitating closely each other’s speeches and gestures. It has been asserted on the best of authority, their own words and their mother’s, that if one was ill the other one was likewise affected. And since they had become spiritists they claimed to have been visited by the same visions and communications. Following the Pemberton twins came the McCleary family, whom I shall more fully describe. Those present were the father, mother, son, George and daughter Esther. Mr. McCleary was a small, quiet, pale, sleek, red-eyed, inoffensive little man, usually known as Mrs. McCleary’s husband. He seemed to feel it his bounden duty to affirm all his wife’s statements, and when asked a question had a way of casting an imploring glance at her,—as if begging her to answer for him, which she usually did,—but who, so far as known, was a kind, indulgent father to his children, and an honest and industrious neighbor. When not otherwise engaged, Mr. McCleary might be found amusing himself with a planchette. With it he talked, reasoned, and speculated upon the problem of life. Sometimes he whispered to the partner of his bosom certain wonderful secrets which he believed the planchette had imparted to him. And—they were secrets no longer. Mrs. McCleary was a short, well-preserved woman of the “fat, fair and forty” type. She had remarkable black eyes, blue-black, waving hair, and very white, plump hands, with which she continually gesticulated to accompany the unceasing flow of words from her tongue. Her speech retained enough of the Irish brogue to make it pleasant to the ear. Mrs. McCleary imagined herself an invalid, though no one, not even herself, could determine the nature of the malady with which she was afflicted. It seemed to be rather a delicacy of constitution than any pronounced illness. Some of her neighbors were uncharitable enough to remark that if Mrs. McCleary were to receive some shock that would rouse her from the helpless state she fancied herself to be in she would be as well and strong as any one. George McCleary, an undergraduate from an Eastern college, was in no way remarkable, but Esther was the hundredth woman, whose influence was felt throughout the little community. She was but a slight, delicately built girl of eighteen years, yet what a marvel of diligence and endurance. In the McCleary family there were six children younger than herself, and upon Esther devolved almost the entire care and responsibility of the household, a responsibility which she accepted uncomplainingly and discharged faithfully.