"Well, the first thing she said was that those souls want to
communicate; and that they begin generally by things like
table-rapping, or making blue lights. Then when you know they're
there, they can go further. Sometimes they gain control of the medium
who is in a trance, and speak through him, or write with his hand.
Then, if things are favorable, they begin to draw out this matter, and
make it into a kind of body for themselves, very thin and ethereal, so
that you can pass your hand through it. Then, as things get better and
better, they go further still, and can make this body so solid that
you can touch it; only this is sometimes rather dangerous, as it is
still, in a sort of way, connected with the medium. I think that's the
idea."

"But what's the good of it all?"

"Well, you see, Mrs. Stapleton thinks that they really are souls from
the other world, and that they can tell us all kinds of things about
it all, and what's true, and so on."

"But you don't believe that?"

Maggie turned her large eyes on the old lady; and a spark of humor
rose and glimmered in them.

"Of course I don't," she said.

"Then how do you explain it?"

"I think it's probably all a fraud. But I really don't know. It