bantering her, protested she could reproduce the so-called phenomena. Failing by raillery or argument to convince her friend, she resorted to illustration. In their conversations of a long summer’s afternoon, Mrs. Patterson had occasionally reverted to the influence her lamented brother had exercised over her studies and ideals. She had described his appearance, talents, and personality with the loving strokes of reminiscence which make vivid portraiture. Mrs. Crosby was an impressionable listener. She possessed a sentimental imagination combined with practical energy, and she became enamored of the mental picture of the departed Albert Baker.
To cleanse her mind of such trumpery rouge of false sentiment and to administer a sharp corrective to her superstition, Mrs. Patterson conceived and put in practise an admirable though harmless hoax. One day, as Mrs. Crosby has described it, while they sat together at opposite sides of a table in the big nursery, Mrs. Patterson suddenly leaned back in her chair, shivered from head to foot, closed her eyes, and began to talk in a deep, sepulchral voice. The voice purported to be Albert Baker’s, saying he had long been trying to get control of his sister Mary. He wished to warn Mrs. Crosby against putting entire confidence in her, for though Mary loved her friend, the voice said, life was a hard experiment for her and she might come to slight Mrs. Crosby’s devotion.
As the message was uncomplimentary to herself, Mrs. Patterson expected Mrs. Crosby would shortly recognize the pretense and laugh with her over it.
