“Yes, I have a feeling as though I had been floating up in the air and hearing music. A sort of dim remembrance of a dream. Oh, if mamma would never compel me to see him again! I shall leave home and go where he shall never find me if that man continues to come to our house. He is so detestable! I hate him!” And the girl shuddered and again covered her face with her hands. “I have told mamma so, but she will not listen to me. She is wholly wrapped up in the belief of spirits, and in Russell.” “Your dislike is very strong to be based only upon this power he has of making you dance hypnotically,” Mark said. “Are you just to him?” “I have reasons enough for my dislike of him,” Esther replied, compressing her lips. “And what am I to do if my own mother will not listen to me? Think of being subject to the power of such a man. I believe him thoroughly unprincipled, and—” “The villain! If he dares!” Mark ground his teeth. Here Lissa put her head in at the door. “Come, Mark,” she whispered, “Professor Russell is writing messages.” Mark stepped quietly into the sitting-room just as the Professor, who sat at a small table scrawling with a pencil a profusion of characters on a sheet of writing-paper, finished it and paused, while the paper was passed from hand to hand for examination. At first nothing could be made of it. Finally some one discovered it was addressed to Lissa. Another read it Alice, and still another Anna. By this time the Professor had aroused himself, and read with little difficulty: “Lissa, my dear sister: How long I have desired to speak with you and let you know I am near you. The only added happiness I could wish for in this life is recognition of my friends on earth. If you will let me converse with you, and Alice, and mother, I will improve every opportunity. I can see you, so cast away all doubt and fear, and help me to communicate with you. Believe, ELSIE.” Lissa found she could trace the words as read, now that she knew what they were. The Professor produced two slates, between which he placed a small pencil, and immediately all in the room heard distinctively the sound of the scratching of the pencil as it apparently wrote upon the slate. When the slates were brought forth from beneath the table and opened there was a long communication upon one of them for Mrs. McCleary, purporting to have come from her mother, and Mrs. McCleary declared it was in her own handwriting. She could “recognize it anywhere,” she said. Whereupon Sol Garrett took part in the conversation. “I’ve been a thinkin’ sence I sot here a good deal about this here writin’ business. An’ it seems to me mighty curis how my old mother came to write me a message when she never in her hull life writ me a word, nor never learnt how. Even her will was signed with her cross-mark. I reckon she must ‘a ben learnin’ pretty fast sence she died.”