woman was Dame Dermody--with fierce black eyes, surmounted by
bushy white eyebrows, by a high wrinkled forehead, and by thick
white hair gathered neatly under her old-fashioned "mob-cap."
Report whispered (and whispered truly) that she had been a lady
by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately closed her
prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior in
social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, she
herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's
memory was a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit,
watching over her, waking or sleeping, morning or night.

Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those
grossly material ideas of modern growth which associate the
presence of spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and
monkey antics performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's
nobler superstition formed an integral part of her religious
convictions--convictions which had long since found their chosen
resting-place in the mystic doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. The
only books which she read were the works of the Swedish Seer. She
mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and departed spirits,
on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with wild fancies,
and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary
religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's
household, but also on proselytizing expeditions to the
households of her humble neighbors, far and near.

Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a
supreme power; priding herself alike on her close attention to
her domestic duties, and on her privileged communications with
angels and spirits. She would hold long colloquys with the spirit
of her dead husband before anybody who happened to be
present--colloquys which struck the simple spectators mute with
terror. To her mystic view, the love union between Mary and me
was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by the
mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us
little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when
we met and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her
son to look upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking
unconsciously on a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning
was on earth, but whose bright end was among the angels in a
better state of being. Imagine my appearing before such a woman
as this, and telling her with tears of despair that I was
determined to die, rather than let my uncle part me from little
Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the hospitality
which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own room.

When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed
a serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said
to her (with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you,
Dame. My mother shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom."

The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced
me roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen.

"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce
black eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I
was ashamed of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done
now? Wait there. Your mother may mistake me too. I shall write to
your mother."

She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims
and sat down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged,
whenever she was at a loss for an expression, she looked over her
shoulder, as if some visible creature were stationed behind her,
watching what she wrote; consulted the spirit of her husband,
exactly as she might have consulted a living man; smiled softly
to herself, and went on with her writing.

"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an
imperial gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are
written there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your
mother."

So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of
manner and language.

I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it
together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her
husband, Dame Dermody wrote:


"MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great
liberty. I have assisted your son George in se tting his uncle's
authority at defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his
resolution to be true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild,
Mary Dermody.

"It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what
motive I have acted in doing these things.

"I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and
consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the
better world are divinely commissioned to discover each other and
to begin their union in this world. The only happy marriages are
those in which the two destined spirits have succeeded in meeting
one another in this sphere of life.

"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can
really part them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find
each other again and become united spirits once more. Worldly


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