The Argosy — page 260: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee ee eC OS YY: OCTOBER, 1885. — THE MYSTERY OF ALLAN GRALE. > © 4-2 LE Rew XXX. ViL. WEBSTER’S HAMMER. R. PALMER and his daughter Agnes were walking along in silence in the summer twilight, after the séance held at Moorland House when Miss Bessie Tempest had played ‘‘ Medium.” ‘Papa, I don’t believe a word of it,” cried Agnes, her pent-up feeling at length bursting forth. ‘‘It was all a wicked cheat from beginning to end.” ‘Hush, child!” said the Doctor, soberly. ‘’The Medium, as she calls herself, is a vain, deceitful woman ; just that, and nothing more,” continued Agnes. ‘She is a most hysterical-looking subject, I admit,” returned Dr. Palmer. “Do you believe she was unconscious, papa, when she pretended to be?” pursued the girl, with fine scorn. ‘‘I don’t. Why, I saw the lead she followed in nearly every word she said!” “ Ah,” said the Doctor, ‘“‘while the rest of us were lost in her clever- ness, you were quietly observing. Tell me what you noticed.” He had a great respect for female observation in social matters, saying that from the beginning the whole sex had been chiefly employed in watching the ways of the world, so that it must have almost developed a new sense. ‘‘She took up what poor Mrs. Grale let drop about the Black Pool, though she chose to speak of it poetically, as ‘the dark water,’” returned Agnes. ‘‘ And when once she got a hint about Ailan, she described his picture as it hangs in the room where we took off our bonnets. Lady Laura could have told her whose portrait it was. For that matter, Lady Laura may have coached her up beforehand.” ‘‘ Lady Laura would be sure to say ‘No’ to that,” said the Doctor, a peculiar smile upon his lips. VOL. XE. R CONNICOOO (C(O)