The change in kinship, and its novelty, staggered me somewhat; clearly they manage things differently in the ‘Summer-land.’  However, I mastered my emotion.  ‘And now,’ I said, ‘for the great question,’ and was going hastily to my table to write it.  ‘Stop,’ said the Medium, ’you’re too excited to ask that question now.  Put some other questions first.  Then when you are calmer put the important question.’ (A clever stroke!  He did not know enough of me or of Marie to answer anything definitely—­a few intermediate questions might furnish him with many a clue.) ’But, my dear sir,’ I cried, ’what can I ask about?  I have but one thought in my mind; that engulfs all others.  If I don’t ask that, I shall have to ask Marie if she minds this pouring rain, or some twaddle about the weather.’  ’Well, well, you’d better ask it then, and get it off your mind, and we’ll see how far Marie can answer it.’ (Here let me recall that stanza in Sister Belle’s communication wherein she says: 

    “My form was sold to doctors three
    And you have all that’s left of me,” etc.)

I sat down at my table and wrote:  ’Is it really true that Sister Belle’s body was sold to three doctors?’ I folded it down, carried it to the Medium’s table, watched him gum it, and still remained standing at his table, but he immediately and peremptorily waved me to my seat.  Again were his hands and my strip of paper, with its freshly gummed fold, completely hidden from sight, behind the row of books.  Again the Medium’s arms moved.  He turned to the window and hastily pulled down the shade.  This puzzled me.  There was no sunshine to be excluded, it was raining fast outside, the day was unusually dark, and he needed all the light he could get.  I turned and looked out of my window, and there in the house just across the narrow street, at a window on a level with ours, and commanding a full view of the Medium’s table, sat a woman sewing, with another, I think, standing by her.  ‘Bravo!’ I thought, ’are not the four Cardinal virtues, Temperance, Justice, Prudence and Fortitude?’ and then resumed my watch inside.  Dr. Mansfield finished writing, and then held up the slip as though for a final revision before handing it to me.  A toothpick which he had in his mouth worked energetically from side to side, and he gravely shook his head as in perplexity.  ‘I don’t like this,’ he ejaculated at last, ’I don’t want to give it to you.  There’ll be trouble here.  It’s very serious.  Better let me tear it up.’  ‘Let me see it,’ I cried, ‘I promise you I’ll be calm,’ and I took the strip from his fingers and read: 

’Dear Brother—­I fear such was the case—­but—­I could not say who—­I have consulted Dr. Hare—­and the far famed Benja Rush, and they agree that the body is not in the earth—­I fear darling Belle’s body—­is in process of being—­wired.  Marie St. Clair.’

The last word was not, I thought, quite legible, so I appealed to the Medium, and when he solemnly said ‘wired,’ the utterance with which I greeted it he probably thought was a groan, and, indeed, from the borderland of laughter, I did try to push it over into the land of tears, as hard as I could.