"Did you get what you wanted that the spirit should tell you?" the
woman asked. Mrs. Lehntman answered yes, it was just what her
friend had wanted so bad to know. Anna was uneasy in this house with
superstition, with fear of her good priest, and with disgust at all
the dirt and grease, but she was most content for now she knew what it
was best for her to do.

Anna paid the woman for her work and then they came away.

"There Anna didn't I tell you how it would all be? You see the spirit
says so too. You must take the place with Miss Mathilda, that is what
I told you was the best thing for you to do. We go out and see her
where she lives to-night. Ain't you glad, Anna, that I took you to
this place, so you know now what you will do?"

Mrs. Lehntman and Anna went that evening to see Miss Mathilda. Miss
Mathilda was staying with a friend who lived in a house that did have
trees about. Miss Mathilda was not there herself to talk with Anna.

If it had not been that it was evening, and so dark, and that this
house had trees all round about, and that Anna found herself going in
and coming out just as the woman that day said that she would do, had
it not all been just as the medium said, the good Anna would never
have taken the place with Miss Mathilda.

Anna did not see Miss Mathilda and she did not like the friend who
acted in her place.

This friend was a dark, sweet, gentle little mother woman, very easy