“See here,” she pursued, “are you a psychic researcher?”

“Cross my heart,” answered the young man, “I never associated with spooks in my life until this week.  I did it then because I wanted a first-class professional medium to take a good job.”

“Investigating Mrs. Markham?  What for?  Has she got a cinch on a relative of yours?”

“Well, I’d like her for a relative,” started the young man.  Then he hesitated and for the first time faltered.  A light blush began at the roots of his hair and overspread his face.

“I got that you were a physician,” said Rosalie, “but there’s one place I got you plumb wrong.  I thought it was business troubles.  So the trouble’s your heart and affections!  It’s that big-eyed blonde niece of Markham’s, of course.  Well, you ain’t the first.  The best way to bring the young men like a flock of blackbirds is to shut a girl away from ’em.”

Now the young man showed real surprise.

“How did you know?” he enquired.

“My controls an’ guides, of course,” responded Rosalie.  “They couldn’t find anybody else to fall in love with around the Markham house—­ain’t as smart as you thought you was, are you?”

“Beside you,” he responded, “I’m Beppo the Missing Link.”

Rosalie acknowledged the compliment, and turned to business.

“I ain’t asking you how I’m going about it,” she said; “probably you’ve planted that.  I am asking you if you’re willing to risk fifty a week on a pig in a poke?  I know about her; we all do.  She’s just like Mrs. Fife.  The Psychic Researchers have written up Mrs. Fife, but they ain’t got half of her.  They miss the big things, just like they get fooled on the little things. We know.  And we know about Mrs. Markham, too, though she’s had sense enough to keep shut up from the professors.

“You’re a skeptic,” pursued Rosalie, “and I’m blowin’ my breath to cool a house afire when I talk to you.  I guess I just talk to hear myself talk.  We start real.  I did; we all do.  With some of us it’s a big streak an’ with some it’s a little.  I was pretty big—­pretty big.  Things happen; voices and faces.  Things that are true right out of the air, and things that ain’t true—­all mixed up with what you’re thinking yourself.  It comes just when it wants to, not when you want it.  And the longer you go on, and the more horse sense you get, the less it comes.”

Rosalie stopped a moment, and veiled her eyes with her lashes, as though speaking out of trance.

“Everyone of us says to herself, ‘It won’t leave me!’ An’ we start to practice.  What are we goin’ to do then?  You git a sitter.  She pays her two dollars.  And they don’t come perhaps.  Not for that sitter, or the next sitter, or the next.  But you have to give the value for the two dollars or go out of business.  So some day, you guess.  That’s the funny thing about this business, anyway.  Lots of times you ain’t quite sure whether guessing