A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE 47 



About that I now heard. On the second day of 

 my visit the mother, finding me alone, said there 

 was something she thought it right to tell me. I 

 had written to her a little while back, inquiring, as 

 she thought, a little anxiously about their welfare, 

 especially about my young friend, and she had 

 answered that they were all well. So they were, but 

 a day or two before receiving my letter there had 

 been an exceedingly painful scene with the girl. She 

 had suddenly, to their amazement, broken out in a 

 passionate revolt against them on account of the 

 religious question which had been troubling their 

 minds. She told them that she had prayed to Heaven 

 to send me to her assistance — to protect and deliver 

 her from them. She had also, she said, made up her 

 mind to leave them, and if she had no money to pay 

 the railway fare, she would walk and live on charity 

 by the way until she came to where I was or found me. 

 It was, the mother said, a trying situation, and gave 

 them all the greatest pain; they began to think they 

 had worried her too much about her religious in- 

 difference. They told her how sorry they were, and 

 succeeded in pacifying her by promising not to 

 trouble her any more, but to leave her to follow her 

 own mind about such matters. 



They must indeed have gone through a painful 

 experience, I thought, seeing the state of mind it 

 had caused in the mother, which made her open her 

 heart to me about it, knowing, too, beforehand on 

 which side my sympathies would lie. 



Believers in telepathy will say that I was justified 



