and wine and money for their dead, but who even burn a black sheep for
them--you, perhaps, have done the same--have they, I ask, done this so
long in vain? I can not believe it. Nay, I know from the ghosts
themselves that this gives them pleasure; so they must have the organs of
sense."

"That we may rejoice departed souls by food and drink," said Melissa,
eagerly, "and that daimons at times mingle with the living, every one of
course, believes; but who ever heard that warm blood stirred in them?
And how can it be possible that they should remunerate a service with
money, which certainly was not coined in their airy realm, but in the
mint here?"

"Not too fast, fair maid," replied the Magian, raising a warning hand.
"There is no form which these intermediate beings can not assume. They
have the control of all and everything which mortals may use, so the soul
of Korinna revisiting these scenes may quite well have paid the ferryman
with an obolus."

"Then you know of it?" asked Melissa in surprise; but the Magian broke
in, saying:

"Few such things remain hidden from him who knows, not even the smallest,
if he strives after such knowledge."

As he spoke he gave the girl such a look as made her eyelids fall, and he
went on with greater warmth: "There would be fewer tears shed by death-
beds, my child, if we could but show the world the means by which the
initiated hold converse with the souls of the dead."