"Bring it here!" said Miss Cornelia implacably; then as Lizzie still hesitated, "Lizzie!"
Shivering, every movement of her body a conscious protest, Lizzie slowly went over to the bookcase, lifted off the prayer book, and took down the ouija-board. Even then she would not carry it normally but bore it over to Miss Cornelia at arms'-length, as if any closer contact would blast her with lightning, her face a comic mask of loathing and repulsion.
She placed the lettered board in Miss Cornelia's lap with a sigh of relief. "You can do it yourself! I'll have none of it!" she said firmly.
"It takes two people and you know it, Lizzie Allen!" Miss Cornelia's voice was stern but--it was also amused.
Lizzie groaned, but she knew her mistress. She obeyed. She carefully chose the farthest chair in the room and took a long time bringing it over to where her mistress sat waiting.
"I've been working for you for twenty years," she muttered. "I've been your goat for twenty years and I've got a right to speak my mind--"
Miss Cornelia cut her off. "You haven't got a mind. Sit down," she commanded.
Lizzie sat--her hands at her sides. With a sigh of tried patience, Miss Cornelia put her unwilling fingers on the little moving table that is used to point to the letters on the board itself. Then she placed her own hands on it, too, the tips of the fingers just touching Lizzie's.
"Now make your mind a blank!" she commanded her factotum.
"You just said I haven't got any mind," complained the latter.
"Well;" said Miss Cornelia magnificently, "make what you haven't got a blank."
The repartee silenced Lizzie for the moment, but only for the moment. As soon as Miss Cornelia had settled herself comfortably and tried to make her mind a suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie began to mumble the sorrows of her heart.
"I've stood by you through thick and thin," she mourned in a low voice. "I stood by you when you were a vegetarian--I stood by you when you were a theosophist--and I seen you through socialism, Fletcherism and rheumatism--but when it comes to carrying on with ghosts--"
"Be still!" ordered Miss Cornelia. "Nothing will come if you keep chattering!"
"That's why I'm chattering!" said Lizzie, driven to the wall. "My teeth are, too," she added. "I can hardly keep my upper set in," and a desolate clicking of artificial molars attested the truth of the remark. Then, to Miss Cornelia's relief, she was silent for nearly two minutes, only to start so violently at the end of the time that she nearly upset the ouija-board on her mistress's toes.