“But surely,” said the fascinated editor, “surely not any—­well, actual materialization?”

“Oh, no; but the communion of souls produces quite sufficient results.  You see, so many fine spirits passed over at once, suddenly, on that First of July, that the twentieth plane is quite thronged with them, and they are just as eager to come back as their friends could be to welcome them.  One good yearn deserves another, as we say.  The only time when these seances fail is when some inharmonious soul is present—­some personality not completely en Rapport with the spirit of the gathering.  I remember, for instance, an occasion when a gentleman from Kentucky had most ardently desired to get into communication with the astrals of some mint juleps he had loved very deeply in life.  Everything seemed propitious, but though I struggled hard I simply could not get the julep spirit to descend to our mortal plane.  Finally I made inquiry and found that one of the guests was a root-beer manufacturer.  Of course you may say that was petty jealousy on the side of the departed, but even these vanished spirits have their human phases.”

She was silent for a moment.

“You can imagine,” she said, “what a perplexity I was in when I discovered these hitherto unsuspected powers in myself.  Was I justified in putting them to use, for the good of humanity?  And wasn’t there a certain pathetic significance in the fact that I, the daughter of the man who had done so much to put these poor lonely spirits into the Beyond, should be made their sole channel of reunion with their bereaved and sorrowing adorers?  In all his harangues, I had never heard my Father attack anything but the actual drinking of liquor.  This form of communication seemed to me to solve so many problems.  And it was in this way that I first met Virgil.”

“Virgil?” said Bleak, absent-mindedly, for he was wondering whether he might be privileged to attend one of these seances.

“Virgil Quimbleton,” she said.  “In the early days of my trances I was much haunted by the spirit of a certain cocktail—­blended, I believe, of champagne and angostura—­which insisted that it would be inconsolable until it could get in contact with Quimbleton and reassure him as to the certainty of its existence beyond mortal bars.  The deep affection and old comradeship evidently cherished between Quimbleton and this cocktail was very touching, and I was more than happy to be able to effect their reunion.  It was for this reason that Quimbleton, under a careful disguise, came to live next door to us on Caraway Street.  I would go out into the garden and have a trance; Quimbleton, poor bereaved fellow, would sit by me in the dusk and revel with the spirit of his dear comrade.  This common bond soon ripened into Jove, and we became betrothed.”

She stripped off one of her gloves and showed Bleak a beautiful amethyst ring.