said can I now recall. But I saw him--good Lord, I saw and talked
with him--and he is dead! So I thought, but I'm mad, Jane, I'm as
crazy as a beetle; and you have kept it from me."

This monologue gave the woman time to collect what faculties she had.

"Alvan," she said, "you have given no evidence of insanity, believe
me. This was undoubtedly an illusion--how should it be anything
else? That would be too terrible! But there is no insanity; you are
working too hard at the bank. You should not have attended the
meeting of directors this evening; any one could see that you were
ill; I knew something would occur."

It may have seemed to him that the prophecy had lagged a bit,
awaiting the event, but he said nothing of that, being concerned with
his own condition. He was calm now, and could think coherently.

"Doubtless the phenomenon was subjective," he said, with a somewhat
ludicrous transition to the slang of science. "Granting the
possibility of spiritual apparition and even materialization, yet the
apparition and materialization of a half-gallon brown clay jug--a
piece of coarse, heavy pottery evolved from nothing--that is hardly
thinkable."

As he finished speaking, a child ran into the room--his little
daughter. She was clad in a bedgown. Hastening to her father she
threw her arms about his neck, saying: "You naughty papa, you forgot
to come in and kiss me. We heard you open the gate and got up and
looked out. And, papa dear, Eddy says mayn't he have the little jug
when it is empty?"