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In the midst of the bitterest cold weather poor little inadequate Mrs. Billings slipped out of life as inconspicuously as she had stayed in it, and Lawrence Billings came into the property, a forlorn little house all out of repair, one cow, several neglected chickens, and an income of sixty dollars per year from some property his father had left. Lawrence could not sew as his mother had done, to work at anything he could do he was ashamed, and he could not get anything he would do; obviously the only thing he could do for himself was to marry a girl with a tidy income and a thrifty hand. This Lawrence Billings set about doing with a will.

He was good looking in a washed-out sort of way, and could drape himself elegantly about a chair, in a beat parlor. The girls rather liked him around, he was handy. But when it came to marrying, that was another thing! He tried several hearty farmers’ daughters in vain. They flouted him openly. But just after Christmas there came to town a young cousin of the postmistress, an orphan, who, rumor said, had a fine house and farm all in her own right. The farm was rented out and she was living on the income. She was pretty and liked to go about, so she accepted Lawrence Billing’s attentions with avidity. They were seen together everywhere, and it began to be commonly spoken as “quite a match after all for poor Lawrence! What a pity his poor mother couldn’t have known!”

Miranda, alert and attentive, bristled like a fine red thistle. Lawrence Billings marry a pink-cheeked girl and live on her farm comfortably, when all the time Allan Whitney was, goodness knew where, exiled from home to keep Lawrence comfortable! Not if she could help it.

She came home from church in high dudgeon with a bright spot on either cheek and her eyes snapping. She had sat behind Lawrence Billings and the pink-cheeked Julia Thatcher and had seen their soft looks. Between their heads, -- his sleek one and her bonneted one, -- had seemed to look down the shadowy face of young Allan, fine and stern and exalted, his sacrifice upon him as he went forth into the whiteness of the storm those long, long years ago. Miranda felt that the time had come for action.

It was late winter, the winter of 1843. The heavy snows were yet on the ground and had no notion of thawing. Miranda went up to her room, carefully laid aside her heavy pelisse, her muff and silk-corded bonnet, and changed her dress. Then she went quietly down to the kitchen to place the Sunday dinner, already cooked the day before, on the table. It was a delicious dinner, with one of the best mince pies that ever was eaten, for a climax, but Miranda forgot for once to watch for David’s praise and Marcia’s quiet satisfaction in the fruit of her labors. She was absorbed beyond any mere immediate interests to rouse her.

“Don’t you feel well, Miranda?” questioned Marcia solicitously.

“Well’z ever!” she responded briefly and slammed off to the kitchen where she could have quiet. Never since the time of Phoebe Deane’s trouble, when Miranda had put more than one finger in the pie before Phoebe was free from a tyrannical sister-in-law, an undesired lover, a weak brother, and happily married to the man of her choice, had Marcia seen Miranda so abstracted. There must be something the matter. But Miranda was much like a boy. If you wanted to find out what was the matter you would better keep still and not let on that you thought anything, and then perhaps you had a chance. Never, if you kindly inquired. So Marcia, wise in her day and generation, held her peace and made things as easy for her handmaiden as possible.

All that day, the next and the next Miranda gloomed, rushed and absented herself from the family as much as was consistent with her duties. Her lips were pursed til their merry red fairly disappeared. Even to Rose she was almost short. Nathan was the only one who brought a fleeting smile, and that was followed by a look of pain. Miranda was at all times intense, and during this time she was painfully more so.

The third day David came into the dining-room with the evening papers, just as Miranda was putting on the supper. He was tired and cold and the firelight looked good to him, so instead of going to the library as usual until Miranda called him for supper, he settled down in his place at the table and began to read.

When his wife came into the room he looked up exultantly:

“Hurrah for Hon. John P. Kennedy! Listen to this, Marcia! ‘The Hon. John P. Kennedy submitted a resolution that the bill appropriating thirty thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, in a series of experiments to test the expediency of the Telegraph projected by Professor Morse, should be passed.’ Isn’t that great? Sit down, dear, and I’ll read it to you while Miranda is putting on the supper.”

Marcia settled herself in her little sewing chair and took up the ever-ready knitting that always lay to hand on the small stand between the dining-room windows; while Miranda, her ears alert, tiptoed about not to interrupt the reading nor lose a single word. It was this that Miranda, through the years in this household, had acquired a really creditable education. David, realizing fully her eagerness to hear, raised his voice pleasantly that it might reach to the kitchen, and began to read:

“On motion of Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, the committee took up the bill to authorize a series of experiments to be made, in order to test the merits of Morse’s electro-magnetic telegraph. The bill appropriates thirty thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the Postmaster-General.

“On motion of Mr. Kennedy, the words ‘Postmaster-General’ inserted.

“Mr. Cave Johnson wished to have a word to say upon the bill. As the present had done much to encourage science, he did not wish to see the science of mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He therefore proposed that one-half of the appropriation be given to Mr. Fisk, to enable him to carry on experiments, as well as Professor Morse.

“Mr. Houston thought that Millerism should also be included in the benefits of the appropriation——”

A snort from the kitchen door brought the reading to a sudden stop and David looked up to see Miranda, hands on her lips, arms akimbo, standing indignant in the doorway. When it came to a matter of understanding Miranda was “all there.”

“Who be they?” she asked, her eyes snapping blue fire.

David loved to see her in this mood, and often wished some of the people who incited her to it could meet her at such a time. He beamed at her now and asked interestedly:

“Who are who, Miranda?”

“Why them two, Mr. Millerism, and the other feller. Who be they and what rights hev they got to butt in to thet there money thet was meant fer the telegraphy?”

Marcia suppressed a hasty smile and David looked down quickly at his paper.

“They’re not men, Miranda, their ‘isms’. Millerism is a belief, and mesmerism is a power.”

Miranda looked puzzled.

David tried to explain.

“Millerism is the belief that a religious sect called the Millerites hold. They are followers of a man named William Miller. They believe that the end of the world is near; that the day in fact is already set. They have a paper called The Signs of the Times. Do you know, Marcia, I read in the New York Tribune the other day that they have now set May 23rd of this coming year as the time of the second coming of Christ. They make it a point to be all ready dressed in white robes awaiting the end when it comes.”

“Gumps!” interpolated Miranda with scorn. “ ’Z if them things made any diffrunce! When it comes to a matter o’ robes I’d prefer a heavenly one, and I calc’late on it’s being furnished me free o’ charge. What’s the other ism? Messyism? Ain’t it got no more sense to ’t than Millerism?”

“Mesmerism? Well, yes, it has. There is perhaps some science back of it, though it is at present very little understood. A man named Franz Mesmer started the idea. He has a theory that one person can produce in another an abnormal condition resembling sleep, during which the mind of the person sleeping is subject to the will of the operator. Mesmer says it is due to animal magnetisms. There have been a good many experiments made on this theory, but to my mind it is a dangeroud thing, for evil-minded people could use it for great harm to others. It is also claimed that under this power the one who is mesmerized can talk with departed spirits.”

(“Humph!” commented Miranda. “More gumps! Say, what’r they thinking about to put sech fool men into the governm’nt t’ Washin’ton? Can’t they see the diffrunce atween things like thet and the telegraphy?”

Miranda, proud in her scientific knowledge, sailed back to her kitchen and took up the muffins for tea, but she had also food for thought and the rest of the evening was silent beyond her wont. It would have been interesting if she had but been in the habit of keeping a diary and setting down her quaint philosophies, but the greater number of them were buried in her own heart, and only the fortunate intimate friend was favored with them now and then.

About a week later Marcia came in from the monthly missionary meeting, which Miranda resolutely refused to attend, declaring that she had missionary work enough in her own kitchen without wasting time hearing a lot of fairy stories about people that lived in the geography and likely weren’t much worse than most folks if the real truth were told.

“Miranda,” said Marcia coming into the wide pleasant kitchen to untie her bonnet, “you’re going to have opportunity to find out what mesmerism is. Your cousin Hannah is going to have a man to visit at her house who understands it and he is going to mesmerize some of the young people. It is Thursday evening and we are invited. Your cousin wanted me to ask you if you would be willing to help serve and clean up afterward. She is going to have coffee and doughnuts.”

Miranda tossed her chin high and sniffed, albeit there was a glitter of interest in her eyes. She was not fond of her Cousin Hannah, blonde and proud and selfish, she that had been Hannah Heath, before she married Lemuel Skinner, and had been wont to look down upon her Cousin Miranda. Ordinarily Miranda would have sent a curt refusal to such a request and Marcia knew it, but the mesmerist was too great a bait. Miranda desired intensely to hear more of mesmerism, so she only tossed her chin and sniffed; but with he lips she condescended.

“I s’pose I kin go ef she wants me so bad,” she reluctantly consented.

There was a good deal of talk about the mesmerist the next few days. Hannah Skinner had hit the popular fancy when she secured the mesmerist to come to her tea-party. Everybody had read about the wonderful things that were purported to be done by mesmerism, and those who were invited to the party could talk of little else. Miranda heard it every time she went to the post-office or the store. She heard it when a neighbor ran in to borrow a cup of molasses for a belated gingerbread, and when she went to her grandmother Heath’s on an errand for Marcia; and the more she heard the more thoughtful she became.

“Who’s Hannah going to hev to her tea-party, Grandma?” she had asked the old lady. Mrs. Heath paused in her knitting, looked over her spectacles and enumerated them:

The Spaffords, the Waites, Aaron Petrie’s folks, the Van Storms, Lawrence Billings, o’ course, and Julia Thatcher’n her aunt, Abe Fonda, Lyman Brown, and Elkanah Wilworth’s nieces up New York—”

But Miranda had heard no more after Lawrence Billings, and her mind was off in a tumult of plans. She could harldly wait until David came home that evening to question him.

“Say, Mr. David, wisht you’d tell me more ’bout that mesmerism thing you was readin’ ’bout. D’ye say they put ’em to sleep, an’ they walked around an’ didn’t know what they was doin’ an’ did what the man told ’em to?”

“Well, about that, Miranda, I think you’ve got the idea.”

“Say, d’you reely b’leeve it, Mr. David? ’Cause I don’t b’leeve nobody could make me do all them fool things ’thout I would let ’em.”

“No, of course not without your consent, Miranda. I believe they make that point. You’ve got to surrender your will to theirs before they can do anything. If you persist they have no power. It’s a good deal like a temptation. If you stand right up to it and say no, it has no chance with you, but if you let yourself play with it, why it soon gets control.”

“But d’you reely b’leeve ther is such a thin’ anyway? Could anybody make you do things you didn’t think out fer yerself?”

“Why, yes, Miranda, it’s this way. There is in us all a power called animal magnetism which if exercised has a very strong influence over other people. You know yourself how some people can persuade others to do almost anything. The power of the eye in looking does a great deal, the touch of the hand in persuasion does more sometimes. Some people too hae stronger wills and minds than others, and there is no question but that there is something to it. I have myself seen exhibitions in a small way of the power of mesmerism, -- the power of one mind over another. They make people go and find some article that has been hidden, just by laying the hand on the subject and thinking of the place where the article is hidden. Such experiments as that are easy and common now. But as for talking with those who have left this world, that’s another thing.”

“But some folks reely b’leeve that?”

“They say they do.”

“Humph! Gumps!” declared Miranda turning back to the kitchen with a satisfied sniff. Thereafter she went about her work singing at the top of her lungs and not another word did she say about mesmerism or the Skinner tea-party, although she walked softly and listened intently whenever anyone else spoke of it.

Miranda went to her Cousin Hannah’s early in the afternoon and meekly helped to get things ready. It was not Miranda’s way to be meek and Hannah was surprised and touched.

“You can come in and watch them when the professor gets to mesmerizing, M’randy,” said Hannah indulgently, noticing with satisfaction the gleam of the green and brown plaid silk beneath Miranda’s ample white apron, as she stooped to dust the legs of the whatnot in the corner, and then rose rustlingly to straighten a large knit antimacassar on the back of the mahogany rocking chair.

“I might took in, but I don’t take much stock in such goin’s on,” conceded Miranda loftily. “Did you say you was going to pass cheese with the doughnuts and coffee? I might a brang some along ef I’d knowed. I made more’n we’d reely eat afore it gets stale to our house.”

Miranda kept herself well in the background during the early part of the evening, though she made one of the company at the beginning and greeted everybody with a self-respecting manner. That much she demanded as recognition of her family and her good clothes. For the rest it suited her plans to keep out of sight, and she made an excuse to slip into the kitchen, where she found a vantage point behind a door that gave her a view of the whole room and a chance to hear what was being said without being particularly observed. Once, within her range and quite near, Lawrence Billings and Julia Thatcher sat for five full minutes, and Miranda’s blood boiled angrily as she saw the evident progress the young man was making in his wooing. Studying the girl’s pink cheeks and laughing blue eyes she decided that she was much too good for him, and above the weak-faced young man seemed to rise in vision the strong fine face of Allan Whitney, too noble even to scorn the weak man who had let him go all these years under a crime he had not committed.

Not even Hannah Heath knew when it was that Miranda slipped back into the room and became a part of the company. The fine aroma of coffee came at the same time, however, and whetted everybody’s appetite. The professor had been carrying on his experiments for some time and several members of the company had resigned themselves laughingly into his hands and been made to totter around the room to find a hidden thimble, giggling foolishly under their ample blindfolding, and groping their way uncertainly; others swaying rhythmically and stalking ahead of their mentor straight to the secret hiding of the trinket. One, a stranger, a dark young man whom the professor had brought with him, had dropped into a somnambulistic state, from which trance he delivered himself of several messages to people in the room from their departed friends. The messages were all of a general nature of greeting, and somewhat characteristic of the departed, nothing to make any undesirable cloud on the spirits of the gay company. Everybody was laughing and chattering gaily between times, telling the professor how perfectly wonderful it all was, and how queer he or she felt under his mesmeric influence.

Miranda had watched it all from her covert, and observed keenly every detail of the affair, also the gullibility of the audience. At just the right moment she entered with her great platter of doughnuts and followed it by steaming cups of coffee.

Oh, Miranda! Child of loneliness and loyalty! In what school did you learn your cunning?

Just how she contrived to get around the longhaired flabby professor perhaps nobody in the room could have explained, unless it might have been Marcia, who was watching her curiously and wondering what Miranda was up to now. Miranda always had some surprise to spring on people when she went around for days like that with bright red cheeks and her eyes flashing with suppressed excitement. Marcia had warned David to be on the lookout for something interesting. But David was sitting in the corner discussing politics, the various vices and virtues of the Whigs versus the Loco-Focos. He took his coffee and doughnuts entirely unaware of what was going on in the room.

Marcia was watching with delight the arts of Miranda as she laughed and chatted with the guest of the evening, travelling back and forth to the kitchen to bring him more cream and sugar, and the largest, fattest doughnuts. Suddenly Cornelia Van Storm leaned over and began to ask about the last missionary meeting, and Marcia was forced to give attention to the Sandwich Islands for a time.

“They do say that some of those heathens that didn’t used to have a thing to wear are getting so fond of clothes that they come to churh in real gaudy attire so that the pastors have had to reprove and admonish them,” said Cornelia, with a zest in her words as if she were retailing a rare bit of gossip. “If that’s so I don’t think I’ll give any more money to the missionary society. I’m sure I don’t see the use of our sacrificing things here at home for them to flaunt the money around there, do you?”

“Why, our money wouldn’t go for their dress anyway,” said Marcia smiling. “I suppose the poor things dress in what they can get and like. But anyway if we sent money to the Sandwich Islands it would likely go to pay the missionary. You know the work there is perfectly wonderful. Nearly all the children over eight can read the New Testament and they have just dedicated their new church. The King of the Islands gave the land it is built on and most of the money to build it. It is 137 feet long and 72 feet wide and cost quite a good deal.”

“Well, I must say if that’s so they are quite able to look after themselves, and I for one don’t approve of sending any more money there. I never did approve of foreign missions anyway, and this makes me feel more so. I say charity begins at home.”

But just at that moment Marcia lifted her eyes and beheld what made her forget the heathen, home and foreign, and give her attention to the other end of the room; for there was Miranda, rosy and bridling like any of the younger girls, allowing the long-haired professor to tie the bandage around her eyes. There was a smile of satisfaction on her pleasant mouth, and a set of determination on her firm shoulders. Marcia was sure the stage was set and the curtain about to rise at last.