Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/16

16 One day, as I came down the path towards her front door, she came forward with a newspaper cutting.

"Oh, I thought you were Diana," she said, and drew back with a hard look in her eyes. "I was going to tell her of this I had found in my newspaper—a beautiful thing about the healing of trees and plants."

"Show me," I said, and held out my hand; but she drew it back.

"No," she said, looking almost angry, "you would try to spoil my faith in it; I won't let you see it."

I used to get so tired of their silly talk about vibrations. The White Priestess would draw her skirts aside, and move further away, if she happened to meet me, and thought I stood too near. No one was ever allowed to go into her bedroom, and she told someone once, that to sleep in any bed than her own, was like using anyone else's toothbrush. She even made Naomi nearly as bad as herself, for, when I was going to pop down on the old stretcher that was out on the verandah, Naomi cried, impulsively, with her hand out:

"Oh, don't sit there, dear! I've been sitting there; you stay at that end and I'll sit at this."

The next minute she was ready to laugh at herself, for she said:

"Oh no, come along. There you are, that's comfortable," and plumped the cushions about behind me.

The Priestess was a germ hunter. By that I mean she chased them, not that she wished to investigate them.

"Oh, I can't sit very far away from the door, because you see I need a-i-r."

This was said with head bent, neck stiffened, and a look of grave importance on her face.

"You see, when you breathe, you take in all the bad germs that are given out."

I wondered if she ever thought of the people next her taking in the bad germs she was giving out herself, but this did not seem to occur to her.

I once went to a public lecture and she happened to be there. Not knowing any of the people round me and seeing that she was alone, I innocently went over and sat on the empty chair next to her.

"I thought I'd come and sit with you," I said.

She appeared not to hear me, but after some minutes, made some remark and to my astonishment, got up and walked away. She went over to talk to someone opposite, took the chair next to her and when this person left to go home, I, thinking perhaps she had been absent-minded, went over to her again.

"You won't think me very rude, will you, but I have to go," she said, and got up and went.