“My!” exclaimed Martha, again. “That was plain enough, to be sure.”
“Yes, wasn't it? I wonder now that I had the courage. He didn't flare up as I expected he would, as I am sure he would have done last fall, for instance. He just looked and looked at me. Then he said: 'Are you really planning to marry that fellow, Lulie?' I thought that as I had gone so far, I might as well go the rest, so I said: 'Yes, father, some day. Not as long as you want me or need me, but some day, if he is willing to wait for me.' He just kept on pulling his beard and looking at me. At last, when he did speak, he asked, 'In spite of me and—and your mother?' It made me feel dreadfully wicked; I almost cried, I guess. But I had to go through with it then, so I said: 'I don't want to marry “in spite” of any one, father. You know I don't. And I shall never leave you—never. But can't you PLEASE see Nelson as he is and not—and not—' He interrupted me there; in fact, I doubt if he heard me. 'Your mother has warned me against that young fellow,' he said. 'You know she has, Lulie.' 'I know you THINK she has, father,' I said.”
Martha's hands fell in her lap. Galusha shook his head.
“Dear me!” he observed. “Dear me!”
Lulie nodded. “Yes, I know,” she said. “As soon as I said it I thought 'Dear me,' too. But I don't believe he heard that, either. He seemed to be thinking and didn't speak for ever so long. Then he said, 'The revelations from above ain't to be set aside. No, no, they lay a duty on us.' Then he stopped again and turned and walked away. The last words he said, as he was going out of the room, were, 'Don't let me ever see that Howard around this house. You hear me?' And that is the way it ended. He hasn't mentioned the subject since. But, at least,” said Lulie, with an attempt at a smile, “he didn't call Nelson a 'swab.' I suppose that is some comfort.”
Martha and Galusha agreed that it was. The latter said: “It seems to me that you may consider it all quite encouraging, really. It is only the—ah—spirits which stand in the way now.”
“Yes, but oh, Mr. Bangs, they always will stand in the way, I'm afraid. Other things, real things or real people we might change or persuade, but how can you change a—a make-believe spirit that isn't and never was, except in Marietta Hoag's ridiculous imagination? Oh, Martha,” she added, “you and Mr. Bangs don't think I'm horrid to speak like this, do you? Of course, if I believed, as father does, that it was really my mother's spirit speaking, I should—well, I should be.... But what is the use? I CAN'T believe such a thing.”
“Of course you can't, child,” said Martha. “I knew your mother and if she was comin' back to this earth she wouldn't do it through Marietta Hoag's head. She had too much self-respect for that.”
Galusha stroked his chin. “I suppose,” he said, “if there were some way in which we might influence that imagination of Miss—ah—Hoag's, a change might be brought about. It would be difficult to reach the said imagination, however, wouldn't it? I once found a way to reach a tomb of the XIIIth Dynasty which had been buried for thousands of years under thirty-three feet of rock and sand. I located it by accident—that is, in a way, it was an accident; of course, we had been searching for some time. I happened to strike the earth at a certain point with my camera tripod and it sounded quite hollow. You see, there was a—ah—sort of shaft, as one might say, which came quite close to the surface at that point. It sounded surprisingly hollow, like a—like something quite empty, you know. Yes.”
Martha nodded. “If you struck Marietta's head anywhere,” she observed, “it would sound the same way. She's got about as much brains as a punkin lantern.”