“you are not to blame for leaving it.”

“Within the lifetime of the child already born,” Clifford went on, “all this will be done away. The world is growing too ethereal and spiritual to bear these enormities a great while longer. To me, though, for a considerable period of time, I have lived chiefly in retirement, and know less of such things than most men, — even to me, the harbingers of a better era are unmistakable.

Mesmerism, now! Will that effect nothing, think you, towards purging away the grossness out of human life?”

“All a humbug!” growled the old gentleman.

“These rapping spirits, that little Phoebe told us of, the other day,” said Clifford, — ”what