"And you don't believe that?" he asked, quietly.
"How can I?" Vera said. "I was brought up with them." She shook
her head and smiled. "I used to play around the kitchen stove
with Pocahontas and Alexander the Great, and Martin Luther lived
in our china closet. You see, the neighbors wouldn't let their
children come to our house; so, the only playmates I had were
-- ghosts." She laughed wistfully. "My!" she exclaimed, "I was a
queer, lonely little rat. I used to hear voices and see visions.
I do still," she added. With her elbows on the arms of her
chair, she clasped her hands under her chin and leaned forward.
She turned her eyes to Winthrop and nodded confidentially.
"Do you know," she said, "sometimes I think people from the
other world do speak to me."
"But you said," Winthrop objected, "you didn't believe."
"I know," returned Vera. "I can't!" Her voice was perplexed,
impatient. "Why, I can sit in this chair," she declared
earnestly, "and fill this room with spirit voices and rappings,
and you sitting right there can't see how I do it. And yet,
inspite of all the tricks, sometimes I believe there's something
in it."
She looked at Winthrop, her eyes open with inquiry. He shook his
head.
"Yes," insisted the girl. "When these women come to me for
advice, I don't invent what I say to them. It's as though
something told me what to say. I have never met them before, but
as soon as I pass into the trance state I seem to know all their
troubles.
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