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Updated: June 6, 2025
Instead of being disappointed, Miss Ludington was, on the whole, relieved to get this letter, and inclined to hope that Mrs. Slater had failed to find the time to write her friend. In that case this extraordinary project of visiting a spiritualist medium would quietly fall through, which was the best thing that could happen.
"I can remember myself as a girl, more or less distinctly, and can even be sentimental about her; but it doesn't seem to me that I am the same person at all; I can't realize it." "Of course you can't realize it. Why should you expect to realize what is not true?" replied Miss Ludington. "But I am the same person," responded Mrs. Slater. Miss Ludington regarded her with a smile.
Miss Ludington neither talked herself nor permitted others to talk in a melancholy tone of the probable nearness of her end. "Death may seem dreadful," she said to Ida one day, "to the foolish people who fancy that an individual dies but once, forgetting that their present selves are but the last of many selves already dead.
"If Miss Ludington had not so loaded me with kindness I could have borne it, better, but to have that sweet old lady fairly worshipping the ground one trod on, and covering one with gifts, and dresses, and jewels, would have been too much, I think, for the conscience of the worst person in the world. "I should have fled from the house before I had been here a week but for you, Paul.
In the days that followed, Ida was the object of a devotion on the part of Miss Ludington and Paul which it would be inadequate to describe as anything less than sheer idolatry. Her experience was such as a goddess's might be who should descend from heaven and take up her abode in bodily form among her worshippers, accepting in person the devotion previously lavished on her effigy.
She seemed, in fact, almost sorry when the patient had no further need of her especial attendance. To Miss Ludington the revelation that she was so dear to Ida was profoundly affecting. It was natural that she should adore Ida, but that Ida should be correspondingly devoted to her touched her in proportion to its unexpectedness.
Many of the members were unwilling to do this, as it seemed a confession that their former action was invalid. Wiser counsels prevailed, especially as Miss Ludington and the State Board strongly urged them not to allow their scruples to stand in the way when there might be a possible doubt as to whether the first ratification was legal.
If she could only have more time to prepare herself, and then could come again. But it was too late to draw back. Dr. Hull had arranged three chairs across the broad doorway between the back and front parlours, and facing the former. He asked Miss Ludington to occupy the middle chair, and, trembling in every limb, she did so. Paul took the chair by her side, the other being apparently for Dr.
Here was a friend who would know no difference between Ida Slater and Ida Ludington. Here was one who loved her for herself. Presently she rose, dried her eyes, and went on down the street, the dog trotting contentedly behind her. As she came to a point beyond which the trees cut off the view of the house, she stood still, gazing back at it for a long time.
As now the grey head and the golden head bent together over one picture after another, Miss Ludington related all she could remember of the history and personal peculiarities of the original. "There is, really, not much to say about them," she said. "They lived very quiet, uneventful lives, and to anybody but us would, doubtless, seem entirely uninteresting persons.
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