"Many things. That trance of yours, to begin with. It didn't go far enough. Now, I ask you, as a prophetess--do you consider it an out-and-out prophecy?"
The grave air he assumed would have deceived a much riper intellect than Sally's. She prepared to discuss the matter seriously.
"It all come true, Mr. Dumbrick."
"No doubt of that--here you are in proof of it, and there's your father in the hospital, and there's your mother managing the workhouse in the country. It was good enough as far as it went, but it has come to an end already, and there's no more to look forward to. That's what I call not satisfactory."
"No, Mr. Dumbrick?"
"No, Sally Chester. The spirits that came to Joanna when she went off that way beat Pharaoh hollow. He couldn't hold a candle to 'em."
Much distressed by this depreciatory criticism, Sally said:
"It was Pharer's first go, Mr. Dumbrick. Perhaps he wasn't quite up to the business."
For the life of him Seth could not repress a laugh.
"There's something in that, Sally. Practice makes perfect, sure. Now, you couldn't sole and heel a pair o' boots the first time of asking; but you'd manage it in a year or two, with plenty of teaching. But about those spirits of Joanna's; they told all sorts o' things about the future, and they were always at it. And Joanna lived to be an old woman, and to the last day of her life she kept trancing away. Now, you've only had one trance, Sally."