have just been speaking of. They filled her mind with the
superstitions which are still respected as truths in the wild
North--especially the superstition called the Second Sight."

"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she
believes in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!"

Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.

"In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in
dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by
spirits who can't spell! By comparison with such superstitions as
these, even the Second Sight has something--in the shape of
poetry--to recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself," she
continued seriously, "the effect of such surroundings as I have
described on a delicate, sensitive young creature--a girl with a
naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected
life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the
infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite
incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer
accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma'am, as you put it.
Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to
meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight.
Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to
understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees
people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That
is the Second Sight, is it not?"