As soon as she grew old enough the “Madam” made her useful in domestic matters. She was taught to sweep and dust the rooms, to go to market, to prepare their simple meals, and to attend to most of the “light housekeeping” which best suited Madam Sharpe’s finances and business. In the evenings if people enough came to form a “circle” she had her part to take in the “manifestations,” which was to her only another of her daily tasks, and when ended she was quickly and gladly in bed and asleep.

So Posey’s life was by no means an idle one. She had enough to do to fill the most of her time, and for the rest, though often she was lonely and longed for companionship, still she had been accustomed from a little child to amusing herself and so had acquired numberless resources to that end. Perhaps the most important result of this way of life was the distinctness in which it kept her mother’s memory, which might have faded had existence for her been happier or less monotonous. Facts and events grew blurred and indistinct, but her mother remained as vivid as a living presence.

No doubt with time imagination added its share till the remembrance grew into her ideal of all that was true and pure and lovely, as it was her greatest solace and comfort. Her words, except those last ones fixed by the solemnity of death, she did not so much remember, but the tenor of her mother’s teachings, her influence, her personality, were indelibly stamped on her mind. In every grief her first impulsive thought was, “Oh, my mamma!” as though even that mute appeal was a consolation; while the reflection, “Would Mamma like to have me?” influenced her actions more than the actual presence of many a living mother. Never a night did she omit to kneel and repeat the prayer she had learned at her knee. Though she had long known them all by heart, she never grew tired of the book of child’s poems out of which her mother had read to her. Often of an evening sitting alone and lonely, out of her vague and fragmentary memories she would try to recall the songs she had sung and the stories she had told her; and many a night when the day had been hard in her small world did she cry herself to sleep with the yearning plaint on her lips, “I do so want to see my mamma!” All this had the effect of keeping her strangely pure, and through the atmosphere of sordid deceit, if not worse, that surrounded her she walked as if guided and led by the mother-hand so long still and folded.

CHAPTER II
AN EXPOSURE

This phase of her life continued till Posey was nearly twelve. At first in the spirit-manifestations she had simply followed the clairvoyant’s directions, but as she became older she not only learned to make herself up for the occasions, but to introduce little variations of her own, which added not a little to the interest and popularity of the séances. Gradually, too, she came to take a certain personal pride in her rôle, of amusement at her own cleverness, and of elation at the sensation she created. As for the moral question, that held no place; she was simply a little actress playing well her part, with an under thought of the profits.

In the earlier days when the “Madam” had both to dress her, and teach her every detail, she had only been able to appear in one “manifestation,” but now she could manage several, and frequently appeared in succession as an Indian princess, a French girl, and “little Nellie of the Golden Hair.” For the French girl, “Madam” had her take French lessons so that her replies could be in that language, and on occasions when all the “influences” were favorable she would sing very softly and sadly a little French song, accompanying herself on a “materialized” guitar.

For a long time she never ventured outside the cabinet, but gaining boldness with practice she at last came into the room, hovering near the circle gathered round the table, and answering any question put her by the clairvoyant, who at such times was always in a trance.

Madam Sharpe was greatly elated by all this, and to her fancy new, brilliant, and profitable successes seemed opening before her. Alas, in this very increase of popularity, and with it of public attention, lay her undoing, as it drew to her séances not only the easily credulous, and the sincere believers, but the doubting skeptics whose purpose was investigation.

So it came one evening that several young men of the latter class, including a newspaper reporter, were present, and after the lights had been turned low and dim, and the thrill of hushed expectancy had settled over the waiting circle, and out of the slowly opening door of the cabinet a white, shadowy little figure had lightly floated, and as the “spirit” passed near the newspaper reporter he adroitly threw a pinch of snuff in its face.

A sneeze followed, a most decidedly human sneeze. Quick as thought he seized it in a strong grasp, while another of the “investigators” as quickly turned the gas high and bright, and then and there was revealed to that astounded circle a plump, round-faced, very flesh-and-blood little girl, with the white powder partly rubbed off her rosy face, her wig of long, floating, yellow hair awry, and her white gauze dress crumpled and torn; frightened, angry, and stoutly struggling to escape. As soon as she saw that exposure had come Madam Sharpe hastily made her escape, and a moment later Posey managed to free herself from the hand of her captor and darted from the room.