"Certainly," cried several members at once, "and many thanks for your very interesting story."
Our hostess curtseyed, said they were very welcome, and left the room.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] A better simile would be "as if charged with electricity," or "like sparks emitted from an electric machine," as this case, which is founded on fact, and which, together with other similar phenomena, is probably of electric origin. (Vide Mrs. Crow's "Nightside of Nature.") Yet we must bear in mind that we are speaking at a time before electricity created that furor in the world that succeeded the discoveries of Benjamin Franklin, and that it is only an unsophisticated country landlady who is speaking, whose science goes no further than the making of an apple pudding, roasting a leg of mutton, or frying a beefsteak.
CHAPTER V.
In which occurs Mr. Parnassus' Ballad—The Chieftain's Destiny.
"Wretched weather, eh?" remarked Mr. Oldstone. "We shall have to call for lights soon. Here, Cyanite, a game of chess, what do you say? A story from whom ever loses."