"My dear," I exclaimed, "don't bring up any harrowing possibilities
which no one but yourself is likely to think of."

"I wish I could be sure of that," she said. "I have heard, but I don't
know how true it is, that spirits cannot be called up and materialized
unless somebody wants them, and I don't suppose there is anybody who
wants the first Mrs. Kilbright. But these men might so work on Mr.
Kilbright's mind as to make him think that he ought to want her."

I groaned. "Dear me!" I said. "I suppose if they did that they would
also bring up old Mr. Scott's mother, and then we should have a united
family."

"And a very funny one it would be," said my wife, smiling,
notwithstanding her fears, "for now I remember that old Mr. Scott told
me that his grandmother died before she was sixty, but that his mother
lived to be seventy-five. Now, he is eighty, if he is a day, so there
would be a regular gradation of ages in the family, only it would run
backward instead of in the usual way. But, thinking it over, I don't
believe the spiritualists will permanently bring up any more of that
family. If they did, they would have to support them, for they could not
ask old Mr. Scott to do it, who hasn't money enough to satisfy his
descendants, and ought not to be expected to support his ancestors."

My letter must have had a good deal of effect upon Mr. Corbridge, for in
less than a week after it was written he came into my office. He
informed me that he and his associates were about to give a series of
séances in our town, but that he had come on before the others in order
to talk to me. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to hear of this