penetrating gaze which had so disturbed her in their first interview.
Rachel did not withdraw her gaze, but continued to look into Hetty's
eyes, steadily, piercingly, with an expression which held Hetty
spell-bound. Presently she said:

"Dear Mrs. Williams, you are thinking something which is not true. Do
not let it stay with you."

"What do you mean, Rachel?" asked Hetty, resentfully. "No one can read
another person's thoughts."

"Not exactly," replied Rachel, in a timid voice, "but very nearly. Since
I have been ill, I have had a strange power of telling what people were
thinking about: I can sometimes tell the exact words. I cannot tell how
it is. I seem to read them in the air, or to hear them spoken. And I can
always tell if a person is thinking either wicked thoughts or untrue
ones. A wicked person always looks to me like a person in a fog. There
have been some people in this room that my father thought very good; but
I knew they were very bad. I could hardly see their faces clear. When a
person is thinking mistaken or untrue thoughts, I see something like a
shimmer of light all around them: it comes and goes, like a flicker from
a candle. When you first came in to see me, you looked so."

"Pshaw, Rachel," said Hetty, resolutely. "That is all nonsense. It is
just the nervous fancy of a sick girl. You mustn't give way to it."

"I should think so too," replied Rachel, meekly. "If it did not so often
come exactly true. My father will tell you how often we have tried it."

"Well, then, tell me what I was thinking just now," laughed Hetty.