“Sleep on, sleep on,” said the doctor, with a wave of his hand; and, as he spoke, her head drooped, her arm fell listlessly down, and her long and heavy breathing denoted deep slumber. “There are people, Miss Dalton,” said he to Kate, “who affect to see nothing in mesmerism but deception and trick, whose philosophy teaches them to discredit all that they cannot comprehend. I trust you may never be of this number.”
“It is very wonderful, very strange,” said she, thoughtfully.
“Like all the secrets of nature, its phenomena are above belief; yet, to those who study them with patience and industry, how compatible do they seem with the whole order and spirit of creation. The great system of vitality being a grand scheme of actionary and reactionary influences, the centrifugal being in reality the centripetal, and those impulses we vainly fancy to be our own instincts being the impressions of external forces do you comprehend me?”
“Not perfectly; in part, perhaps,” said she, diffidently.
“Even that is something,” replied he, with a bland smile. “One whose future fortunes will place her in a station to exert influence is an enviable convert to have brought to truth.”
“I!” said she, blushing with shame and surprise together; “surely you mistake, sir. I am neither born to rank, nor like to attain it.”
“Both one and the other, young lady,” said he, solemnly; “high as your position will one day be, it will not be above the claims of your descent. It is not on fallible evidence that I read the future.”
“And can you really predict my fortune in life?” asked she, eagerly.
“More certainly than you would credit it, when told,” said he, deliberately.
“How I should like to hear it; how I should like to know” She stopped, and a deep blush covered her face.