“Communication between the spirit world and the corporeal world is in the nature of things, and has in it nothing supernatural.”
The body, after all, is only a portable, two-legged telephone through which the soul, or part of it, communicates with other souls which for purposes of education and evolution are temporarily imprisoned in these cumbrous and ingenious, but very inconvenient physical machines.—William T. Stead.
Chrissalyn had the usual difficulty of the untrained in finding employment. The search was long and disheartening and might never have had a happy ending but for a curious accident, which was no doubt down in the books of destiny.
She was going up a public stairway one day, when a man descending at a break-neck gait ran against her, throwing her down. Distressed at what he feared might have a serious ending, he picked her up, bewailing his awkwardness, and offering to do anything in his power to atone for it.
She opened her eyes to consciousness just as he was saying, “What can I do for her? What can I do for her?”
“Get me a chance to earn my bread,” she gasped, with almost her first breath.
“I’ll do it at once,” he said. “I’ll take you right up the stairs into my office and install you, out of gratitude that I didn’t kill you.” So it could be said in all truth that she “fell into a good situation,” for that it proved to be. Her ignorance of the duties she was to perform was patiently borne with until it was overcome. Never was butterfly more painstaking and industrious than she, and work proved a blessing to her, as it does to everybody whose heart is in it. Occupation gave her a stronger hold on life, for self-dependence is a wonderful invigorator. It gave her added dignity, too, leaving just enough of the butterfly instinct to give her exceeding grace.
Seldom did she speak of her husband, save to Cartice, from whom she concealed nothing, for Mrs. Doring was always tolerant, helpful, receptive, kind and sympathetic, never critical and condemnatory. Others beside the Butterfly understood this, and went to her with what they needed to tell. The mind that is receptive, never meeting any honest communication with hedgehog defiance or fool’s sneer, becomes a magnet which draws knowledge from the very fountain of light and life. Into it flow the secrets of the universe as well as of individuals.
Speaking of her husband one day to Cartice, the Butterfly said, “I never shed any tears because he died. It was the only road out of misery for him and for me; but I did weep for the happiness we never had together, yet might have had.”
One Sunday she came, but was silent and reflective, unlike her usual self, for a time. At last she said: “Cartice, dear, I want to tell you something that will certainly seem queer to you. I dare not speak of it to any one else, lest I be locked up as a lunatic. But you are always so kind and so sensible, you may be able to understand it. I don’t. When I think of it I feel afraid that I am a little off my base.”