"I should like to ask this: why is it that you, who have solved the great secret of death, should, now you are permitted to come back and speak to those of us who haven't, talk such horrible drivel?"
"Hear! hear!" assented a member of the circle.
"Oh, it's this way," answered the spirit: "every one of you sitting here have your attendant spirits. If you are intellectual, intellectual spirits attend you and come to talk to you, but as you are not they just crack silly jokes."
There was laughter at this, not only from the sitters, but among the spirits, of which the room, by this time, seemed to be full.
"That's not bad," replied Dick. "One might think you'd said that before, but as it happens we are not all fools, and I personally would like something more sensible. This is a time when thousands of hearts are breaking," he added.
"What would you like to know?"
It was another voice that spoke now—a sweeter and more refined voice, and might have belonged to a woman.
"I would like to know if it is true that each of us have attendant spirits, as one of you said just now?"
"Yes; that is true."
"You mean guardian angels?"