“When she was alive?” he said. “Of course,” answered the girl. “Of course,” repeated the uncle. “I thought you meant--” He looked suspiciously at her and shook his head. “Never mind,” he added. “Well,” he went on cynically, striving to cover up the embarrassment of the moment, “your mother’s spirit will probably feel as deep an interest in her brother as in her daughter. We shall see, we shall see which of us two she is going to help.” He turned to Garrett and Rainey in the hall. “Take my niece to the door, Garrett,” he directed. As soon as Miss Coates had disappeared, Hallowell turned to Rainey, his face lit with pleased and childish anticipation. “Well,” he whispered eagerly, “is she here?” Rainey nodded and glanced in the direction opposite to the one Miss Coates had taken. “She’s been waiting half an hour. And the Professor too.” “Bring them at once,” commanded Mr. Hallowell excitedly. “And then shut the door--and--and tell the Judge I can’t see him--tell him I’m too tired to see him. Understand?” Rainey peered cautiously over the railing of the stairs to the first floor, and then beckoned to some one who apparently was waiting at the end of the hall. “Miss Vera, sir,” he announced, “and Professor Vance.” Although but lately established in New York, the persons Dr. Rainey introduced had already made themselves comparatively well-known. For the last six weeks as “headliners” at one of the vaudeville theatres, and as entertainers at private houses, under the firm name of “The Vances,” they had been giving an exhibition of code and cipher signaling. They called it mind reading. During the day, at the house of Vance and his wife, the girl, as “Vera, the Medium,” furnished to all comers memories of the past or news of the future. In their profession, in all of its branches, the man and the girl were past masters. They knew it from the A, B, C of the dream book to the post-graduate work of projecting from a cabinet the spirits of the dead. As the occasion offered and paid best, they were mind readers, clairvoyants, materializing mediums, test mediums. From them, a pack of cards, a crystal globe, the lines of the human hand, held no secrets. They found lost articles, cast horoscopes, gave advice in affairs of the heart, of business and speculation, uttered warnings of journeys over seas and against a smooth-shaven stranger. They even stooped to foretell earthquakes, or caused to drop fluttering from the ceiling a letter straight from the Himalayas. Among those who are the gypsies of the cities, they were the aristocrats of their calling, and to them that calling was as legitimate a business as is, to the roadside gypsy, the swapping of horses. The fore-parents of each had followed that same calling, and to the children it was commonplace and matter-of-fact. It held no adventure, no moral obloquy.