There is no Death Part 7

Here she seemed unable to express herself.

("Did the trouble I had before your birth affect your spirit, Florence?")

"Only as things cause each other. I was with you, mother, all through that trouble. I should be nearer to you, _than any child you have_, if I could only get close to you."

("I can't bear to hear you speak so sadly, dear. I have always believed that _you_, at least, were happy in Heaven.")

"I am _not_ in Heaven! But there will come a day, mother--I can laugh when I say it--when we shall go to heaven _together_ and pick blue flowers--_blue flowers_. They are so good to me here, but if your eye cannot bear the daylight you cannot see the b.u.t.tercups and daisies."

I did not learn till afterwards that in the spiritual language blue flowers are typical of happiness. The next question I asked her was if she thought she could write through me.

"I don't seem able to write through you, but why, I know not."

("Do you know your sisters, Eva and Ethel?")

"No! no!" in a weary voice. "The link of sisterhood is only through the mother. That kind of sisterhood does not last, because there is a higher."

("Do you ever see your father?")

"No! he is far, far away. I went once, not more. Mother, dear, he'll love me when he comes here. They've told me so, and they always tell truth here! I am but a child, yet not so very little. I seem composed of two things--a child in ignorance and a woman in years. Why can't I speak at other places? I have wished and tried! I've come very near, but it seems so easy to speak now. This medium seems so different."

("I wish you could come to me when I am alone, Florence.")

"You _shall_ know me! I _will_ come, mother, dear. I shall always be able to come here. I _do_ come to you, but not in the same way."

She spoke in such a plaintive, melancholy voice that Mrs. Cook, thinking she would depress my spirits, said, "Don't make your state out to be sadder than it really is." Her reply was very remarkable.

"_I am, as I am!_ Friend! when you come here, if you find that sadness _is_, you will not be able to alter it by plunging into material pleasures. _Our sadness makes the world we live in._ It is not deeds that make us wrong. It is the state in which _we were born_. Mother! you say I died sinless. That is nothing. I was born _in a state_. Had I lived, I should have caused you more pain than you can know. I am better here. I was not fit to battle with the world, and they took me from it.

Mother! you won't let this make you sad. You must not."

("What can I do to bring you nearer to me?")

"I don't know what will bring me nearer, but I'm helped already by just talking to you. There's a ladder of brightness--every step. I believe I've gained just one step now. O! the Divine teachings are so mysterious. Mother! does it seem strange to you to hear your 'baby' say things as if she knew them? I'm going now. Good-bye!"

And so "Florence" went. The next voice that spoke was that of a guide of the medium, and I asked her for a personal description of my daughter as she then appeared. She replied, "Her face is downcast. We have tried to cheer her, but she is very sad. It is the _state in which she was born_.

Every physical deformity is the mark of a condition. A weak body is not necessarily the mark of a weak spirit, but the _prison_ of it, because the spirit might be too pa.s.sionate otherwise. You cannot judge in what way the mind is deformed because the body is deformed. It does not follow that a canker in the body is a canker in the mind. But the mind may be too exuberant--may need a canker to restrain it."

I have copied this conversation, word for word, from the shorthand notes taken at the time of utterance; and when it is remembered that neither Mrs. Keningale Cook nor her husband knew that I had lost a child--that they had never been in my house nor a.s.sociated with any of my friends--it will at least be acknowledged, even by the most sceptical, that it was a very remarkable coincidence that I should receive such a communication from the lips of a perfect stranger. Only once after this did "Florence" communicate with me through the same source. She found congenial media nearer home, and naturally availed herself of them. But the second occasion was almost more convincing than the first. I went one afternoon to consult my solicitor in the strictest confidence as to how I should act under some very painful circ.u.mstances, and he gave me his advice. The next morning as I sat at breakfast, Mrs. Cook, who was still living at Redhill, ran into my room with an apology for the unceremoniousness of her visit, on the score that she had received a message for me the night before which "Florence" had begged her to deliver without delay. The message was to this effect: "Tell my mother that I was with her this afternoon at the lawyer's, and she is _not_ to follow the advice given her, as it will do harm instead of good." Mrs.

Cook added, "I don't know to what 'Florence' alludes, of course, but I thought it best, as I was coming to town, to let you know at once."

The force of this anecdote does not lie in the context. The mystery is contained in the fact of a secret interview having been overheard and commented upon. But the truth is, that having greater confidence in the counsel of my visible guide than in that of my invisible one, I abided by the former, and regretted it ever afterwards.

The first conversation I held with "Florence" had a great effect upon me. I knew before that my uncontrolled grief had been the cause of the untimely death of her body, but it had never struck me that her spirit would carry the effects of it into the unseen world. It was a warning to me (as it should be to all mothers) not to take the solemn responsibility of maternity upon themselves without being prepared to sacrifice their own feelings for the sake of their children. "Florence"

a.s.sured me, however, that communion with myself in my improved condition of happiness would soon lift her spirit from its state of depression, and consequently I seized every opportunity of seeing and speaking with her. During the succeeding twelve months I attended numerous _seances_ with various media, and my spirit child (as she called herself) never failed to manifest through the influence of any one of them, though, of course, in different ways. Through some she touched me only, and always with an infant's hand, that I might recognize it as hers, or laid her mouth against mine that I might feel the scar upon her lip; through others she spoke, or wrote, or showed her face, but I never attended a _seance_ at which she omitted to notify her presence. Once at a dark circle, held with Mr. Charles Williams, after having had my dress and that of my next neighbor, Lady Archibald Campbell, pulled several times as if to attract our attention, the darkness opened before us, and there stood my child, smiling at us like a happy dream, her fair hair waving about her temples, and her blue eyes fixed on me. She was clothed in white, but we saw no more than her head and bust, about which her hands held her drapery. Lady Archibald Campbell saw her as plainly as I did.

On another occasion Mr. William Eglinton proposed to me to try and procure the spirit-writing on his arm. He directed me to go into another room and write the name of the friend I loved best in the spirit world upon a sc.r.a.p of paper, which I was to twist up tightly and take back to him. I did so, writing the name of "John Powles." When I returned to Mr.

Eglinton, he bared his arm, and holding the paper to the candle till it was reduced to tinder, rubbed his flesh with the ashes. I knew what was expected to ensue. The name written on the paper was to reappear in red or white letters on the medium's arm. The sceptic would say it was a trick of thought-reading, and that, the medium knowing what I had written, had prepared the writing during my absence. But to his surprise and mine, when at last he shook the ashes from his arm, we read, written in a bold, clear hand, the words--"Florence is the dearest," as though my spirit child had given me a gentle rebuke for writing any name but her own. It seems curious to me now to look back and remember how melancholy she used to be when she first came back to me, for as soon as she had established an unbroken communication between us, she developed into the merriest little spirit I have ever known, and though her childhood has now pa.s.sed away, and she is more dignified and thoughtful and womanly, she always appears joyous and happy. She has manifested largely to me through the mediumship of Mr. Arthur Colman. I had known her, during a dark _seance_ with a very small private circle (the medium being securely held and fastened the while) run about the room, like the child she was, and speak to and kiss each sitter in turn, pulling off the sofa and chair covers and piling them up in the middle of the table, and changing the ornaments of everyone present--placing the gentlemen's neckties round the throats of the ladies, and hanging the ladies'

earrings in the b.u.t.tonholes of the gentlemen's coats--just as she might have done had she been still with us, a happy, petted child, on earth. I have known her come in the dark and sit on my lap and kiss my face and hands, and let me feel the defect in her mouth with my own. One bright evening on the 9th of July--my birthday--Arthur Colman walked in quite unexpectedly to pay me a visit, and as I had some friends with me, we agreed to have a _seance_. It was impossible to make the room dark, as the windows were only shaded by venetian blinds, but we lowered them, and sat in the twilight. The first thing we heard was the voice of "Florence" whispering--"A present for dear mother's birthday," when something was put into my hand. Then she crossed to the side of a lady present and dropped something into her hand, saying, "And a present for dear mother's friend!" I knew at once by the feel of it that what "Florence" had given me was a chaplet of beads, and knowing how often, under similar circ.u.mstances, articles are merely carried about a room, I concluded it was one which lay upon my drawing-room mantel-piece, and said as much. I was answered by the voice of "Aimee," the medium's nearest control.

"You are mistaken," she said, "'Florence' has given you a chaplet you have never seen before. She was exceedingly anxious to give you a present on your birthday, so I gave her the beads which were buried with me. They came from my coffin. I held them in my hand. All I ask is, that you will not shew them to Arthur until I give you leave. He is not well at present, and the sight of them will upset him."

I was greatly astonished, but, of course, I followed her instructions, and when I had an opportunity to examine the beads, I found that they really were strangers to me, and had not been in the house before. The present my lady friend had received was a large, unset topaz. The chaplet was made of carved wood and steel. It was not till months had elapsed that I was given permission to show it to Arthur Colman. He immediately recognized it as the one he had himself placed in the hands of "Aimee" as she lay in her coffin, and when I saw how the sight affected him, I regretted I had told him anything about it. I offered to give the beads up to him, but he refused to receive them, and they remain in my possession to this day.

But the great climax that was to prove beyond all question the personal ident.i.ty of the spirit who communicated with me, with the body I had brought into the world, was yet to come. Mr. William Harrison, the editor of the _Spiritualist_ (who, after seventeen years' patient research into the science of Spiritualism, had never received a personal proof of the return of his own friends, or relations) wrote me word that he had received a message from his lately deceased friend, Mrs. Stewart, to the effect that if he would sit with the medium, Florence Cook, and one or two harmonious companions, she would do her best to appear to him in her earthly likeness and afford him the test he had so long sought after. Mr. Harrison asked me, therefore, if I would join him and Miss Kidlingbury--the secretary to the British National a.s.sociation of Spiritualists--in holding a _seance_ with Miss Cook, to which I agreed, and we met in one of the rooms of the a.s.sociation for that purpose. It was a very small room, about 8 feet by 16 feet, was uncarpeted and contained no furniture, so we carried in three cane-bottomed chairs for our accommodation. Across one corner of the room, about four feet from the floor, we nailed an old black shawl, and placed a cushion behind it for Miss Cook to lean her head against. Miss Florence Cook, who is a brunette, of a small, slight figure, with dark eyes and hair which she wore in a profusion of curls, was dressed in a high grey merino, ornamented with crimson ribbons. She informed me previous to sitting, that she had become restless during her trances lately, and in the habit of walking out amongst the circle, and she asked me as a friend (for such we had by that time become) to scold her well should such a thing occur, and order her to go back into the cabinet as if she were "a child or a dog;" and I promised her I would do so. After Florence Cook had sat down on the floor, behind the black shawl (which left her grey merino skirt exposed), and laid her head against the cushion, we lowered the gas a little, and took our seats on the three cane chairs. The medium appeared very uneasy at first, and we heard her remonstrating with the influences for using her so roughly. In a few minutes, however, there was a tremulous movement of the black shawl, and a large white hand was several times thrust into view and withdrawn again. I had never seen Mrs. Stewart (for whom we were expressly sitting) in this life, and could not, therefore, recognize the hand; but we all remarked how large and white it was. In another minute the shawl was lifted up, and a female figure crawled on its hands and knees from behind it, and then stood up and regarded us. It was impossible, in the dim light and at the distance she stood from us, to identify the features, so Mr. Harrison asked if she were Mrs. Stewart. The figure shook its head. I had lost a sister a few months previously, and the thought flashed across me that it might be her. "Is it you, Emily?" I asked; but the head was still shaken to express a negative, and a similar question on the part of Miss Kidlingbury, with respect to a friend of her own, met with the same response. "Who _can_ it be?" I remarked curiously to Mr. Harrison.

"Mother! don't you know me?" sounded in "Florence's" whispering voice. I started up to approach her, exclaiming, "O! my darling child! I never thought I should meet you here!" But she said, "Go back to your chair, and I will come to you!" I reseated myself, and "Florence" crossed the room and sat down _on my lap_. She was more unclothed on that occasion than any materialized spirit I have ever seen. She wore nothing on her head, only her hair, of which she appears to have an immense quant.i.ty, fell down her back and covered her shoulders. Her arms were bare and her feet and part of her legs, and the dress she wore had no shape or style, but seemed like so many yards of soft thick muslin, wound round her body from the bosom to below the knees. She was a heavy weight--perhaps ten stone--and had well-covered limbs. In fact, she was then, and has appeared for several years past, to be, in point of size and shape, so like her eldest sister Eva, that I always observe the resemblance between them. This _seance_ took place at a period when "Florence" must have been about seventeen years old.

"Florence, my darling," I said, "is this _really_ you?" "Turn up the gas," she answered, "and look at my mouth." Mr. Harrison did as she desired, and we all saw distinctly _that peculiar defect on the lip_ with which she was born--a defect, be it remembered, which some of the most experienced members of the profession had affirmed to be "_so rare as never to have fallen under their notice before_." She also opened her mouth that we might see she had no gullet. I promised at the commencement of my book to confine myself to facts, and leave the deduction to be drawn from them to my readers, so I will not interrupt my narrative to make any remarks upon this incontrovertible proof of ident.i.ty. I know it struck me dumb, and melted me into tears. At this juncture Miss Cook, who had been moaning and moving about a good deal behind the black shawl, suddenly exclaimed, "I can't stand this any longer," and walked out into the room. There she stood in her grey dress and crimson ribbons whilst "Florence" sat on my lap in white drapery.

But only for a moment, for directly the medium was fully in view, the spirit sprung up and darted behind the curtain. Recalling Miss Cook's injunctions to me, I scolded her heartily for leaving her seat, until she crept back, whimpering, to her former position. The shawl had scarcely closed behind her before "Florence" reappeared and clung to me, saying, "Don't let her do that again. She frightens me so." She was actually trembling all over. "Why, Florence," I replied. "Do you mean to tell me you are frightened of your medium? In this world it is we poor mortals who are frightened of the spirits." "I am afraid she will send me away, mother," she whispered. However, Miss Cook did not disturb us again, and "Florence" stayed with us for some time longer. She clasped her arms round my neck, and laid her head upon my bosom, and kissed me dozens of times. She took my hand and spread it out, and said she felt sure I should recognize her hand when she thrust it outside the curtain, because it was so much like my own. I was suffering much trouble at that time, and "Florence" told me the reason G.o.d had permitted her to show herself to me in her earthly deformity was so that I might be sure that she was herself, and that Spiritualism was a truth to comfort me.

"Sometimes you doubt, mother," she said, "and think your eyes and ears have misled you; but after this you must never doubt again. Don't fancy I am like this in the spirit land. The blemish left me long ago. But I put it on to-night to make you certain. Don't fret, dear mother.

Remember _I_ am always near you. No one can take _me_ away. Your earthly children may grow up and go out into the world and leave you, but you will always have your spirit child close to you." I did not, and cannot, calculate for how long "Florence" remained visible on that occasion.

Mr. Harrison told me afterwards that she had remained for nearly twenty minutes. But her undoubted presence was such a stupendous fact to me, that I could only think that _she was there_--that I actually held in my arms the tiny infant I had laid with my own hands in her coffin--that she was no more dead than I was myself, but had grown to be a woman. So I sat, with my arms tight round her, and my heart beating against hers, until the power decreased, and "Florence" was compelled to give me a last kiss and leave me stupefied and bewildered by what had so unexpectedly occurred. Two other spirits materialized and appeared after she had left us, but as neither of them was Mrs. Stewart, the _seance_, as far as Mr. Harrison was concerned, was a failure. I have seen and heard "Florence" on numerous occasions since the one I have narrated, but not with the mark upon her mouth, which she a.s.sures me will never trouble either of us again. I could fill pages with accounts of her pretty, caressing ways and her affectionate and sometimes solemn messages; but I have told as much of her story as will interest the general reader. It has been wonderful to me to mark how her ways and mode of communication have changed with the pa.s.sing years. It was a simple child who did not know how to express itself that appeared to me in 1873. It is a woman full of counsel and tender warning that comes to me in 1890. But yet she is only nineteen. When she reached that age, "Florence" told me she should never grow any older in years or appearance, and that she had reached the climax of womanly perfection in the spirit world. Only to-night--the night before Christmas Day--as I write her story, she comes to me and says, "Mother! you must not give way to sad thoughts. The Past is past. Let it be buried in the blessings that remain to you."

And amongst the greatest of those blessings I reckon my belief in the existence of my spirit-child.

CHAPTER IX.

THE STORY OF EMILY.

My sister Emily was the third daughter of my late father, and several years older than myself. She was a handsome woman--strictly speaking, perhaps, the handsomest of the family, and quite unlike the others. She had black hair and eyes, a pale complexion, a well-shaped nose, and small, narrow hands and feet. But her beauty had slight detractions--so slight, indeed, as to be imperceptible to strangers, but well known to her intimate friends. Her mouth was a little on one side, one shoulder was half an inch higher than the other, her fingers were not quite straight, nor her toes, and her hips corresponded with her shoulders.

She was clever, with a versatile, all-round talent, and of a very happy and contented disposition. She married Dr. Henry Norris of Charmouth, in Dorset, and lived there many years before her death. She was an excellent wife and mother, a good friend, and a sincere Christian; indeed, I do not believe that a more earnest, self-denying, better woman ever lived in this world. But she had strong feelings, and in some things she was very bigoted. One was Spiritualism. She vehemently opposed even the mention of it, declared it to be diabolical, and never failed to blame me for pursuing such a wicked and unholy occupation. She was therefore about the last person whom I should have expected to take advantage of it to communicate with her friends.

My sister Emily died on the 20th of April, 1875. Her death resulted from a sudden attack of pleurisy, and was most unexpected. I was sitting at an early dinner with my children on the same day when I received a telegram from my brother-in-law to say, "Emily very ill; will telegraph when change occurs," and I had just despatched an answer to ask if I should go down to Charmouth, or could be of any use, when a second message arrived, "All is over. She died quietly at two o'clock." Those who have received similar shocks will understand what I felt. I was quite stunned, and could not realize that my sister had pa.s.sed away from us, so completely unantic.i.p.ated had been the news. I made the necessary arrangements for going down to her funeral, but my head was filled with nothing but thoughts of Emily the while, and conjectures of _how_ she had died and of _what_ she had died (for that was, as yet, unknown to me), and what she had thought and said; above all, what she was thinking and feeling at that moment. I retired to rest with my brain in a whirl, and lay half the night wide awake, staring into the darkness, and wondering where my sister was. _Now_ was the time (if any) for my cerebral organs to play me a trick, and conjure up a vision of the person I was thinking of. But I saw nothing; no sound broke the stillness; my eyes rested only on the darkness. I was quite disappointed, and in the morning I told my children so. I loved my sister Emily dearly, and I hoped she would have come to wish me good-bye. On the following night I was exhausted by want of sleep and the emotion I had pa.s.sed through, and when I went to bed I was very sleepy. I had not been long asleep, however, before I was waked up--I can hardly say by what--and there at my bedside stood Emily, smiling at me. When I lost my little "Florence," Emily had been unmarried, and she had taken a great interest in my poor baby, and nursed her during her short lifetime, and, I believe, really mourned her loss, for (although she had children of her own) she always wore a little likeness of "Florence" in a locket on her watch-chain. When Emily died I had of course been for some time in communication with my spirit-child, and when my sister appeared to me that night, "Florence" was in her arms, with her head resting on her shoulder. I recognized them both at once, and the only thing which looked strange to me was that Emily's long black hair was combed right back in the Chinese fashion, giving her forehead an unnaturally high appearance. This circ.u.mstance made the greater impression on me, because we all have such high foreheads with the hair growing off the temples that we have never been able to wear it in the style I speak of. With this exception my sister looked beautiful and most happy, and my little girl clung to her lovingly. Emily did not speak aloud, but she kept on looking down at "Florence," and up at me, whilst her lips formed the words, "Little Baby," which was the name by which she had always mentioned my spirit-child. In the morning I mentioned what I had seen to my elder girls, adding, "I hardly knew dear Aunt Emily, with her hair scratched back in that fashion."

This apparition happened on the Wednesday night, and on the Friday following I travelled down to Charmouth to be present at the funeral, which was fixed for Sat.u.r.day. I found my sister Cecil there before me.

As soon as we were alone, she said to me, "I am so glad you came to-day.

I want you to arrange dear Emily nicely in her coffin. The servants had laid her out before my arrival, and she doesn't look a bit like herself.

But I haven't the nerve to touch her." It was late at night, but I took a candle at once and accompanied Cecil to the death-chamber. Our sister was lying, pale and calm, with a smile upon her lips, much as she had appeared to me, and with _all her black hair combed back from her forehead_. The servants had arranged it so, thinking it looked neater.

It was impossible to make any alteration till the morning, but when our dear sister was carried to her grave, her hair framed her dead face in the wavy curls in which it always fell when loose; a wreath of flowering syringa was round her head, a cross of violets on her breast, and in her waxen, beautifully-moulded hands, she held three tall, white lilies. I mention this because she has come to me since with the semblance of these very flowers to ensure her recognition. After the funeral, my brother-in-law gave me the details of her last illness. He told me that on the Monday afternoon, when her illness first took a serious turn and she became (as he said) delirious, she talked continually to her father, Captain Marryat (to whom she had been most reverentially attached), and who, she affirmed, was sitting by the side of the bed. Her conversation was perfectly rational, and only disjointed when she waited for a reply to her own remarks. She spoke to him of Langham and all that had happened there, and particularly expressed her surprise at his having _a beard_, saying, "Does hair grow up there, father?" I was the more impressed by this account, because Dr. Norris, like most medical men, attributed the circ.u.mstance entirely to the distorted imagination of a wandering brain. And yet my father (whom I have never seen since his death) has been described to me by various clairvoyants, and always as _wearing a beard_, a thing he never did during his lifetime, as it was the fashion then for naval officers to wear only side whiskers. In all his pictures he is represented as clean shorn, and as he was so well known a man, one would think that (were they dissembling) the clairvoyants, in describing his personal characteristics, would follow the clue given by his portraits.

For some time after my sister Emily's death I heard nothing more of her, and for the reasons I have given, I never expected to see her again until we met in the spirit-world. About two years after her death, however, my husband, Colonel Lean, bought two tickets for a series of _seances_ to be held in the rooms of the British National a.s.sociation of Spiritualists under the mediumship of Mr. William Eglinton. This was the first time we had ever seen or sat with Mr. Eglinton, but we had heard a great deal of his powers, and were curious to test them. On the first night, which was a Sat.u.r.day, we a.s.sembled with a party of twelve, all complete strangers, in the rooms I have mentioned, which were comfortably lighted with gas. Mr. Eglinton, who is a young man inclined to stoutness, went into the cabinet, which was placed in the centre of us, with spectators all round it. The cabinet was like a large cupboard, made of wood and divided into two parts, the part.i.tion being of wire-work, so that the medium might be padlocked into it, and a curtain drawn in front of both sides. After a while, a voice called out to us not to be frightened, as the medium was coming out to get more power, and Mr. Eglinton, in a state of trance and dressed in a suit of evening clothes, walked out of the cabinet and commenced a tour of the circle.

He touched every one in turn, but did not stop until he reached Colonel Lean, before whom he remained for some time, making magnetic pa.s.ses down his face and figure. He then turned to re-enter the cabinet, but as he did so, some one moved the curtain from inside and Mr. Eglinton _actually held the curtain to one side to permit the materialized form to pa.s.s out_ before he went into the cabinet himself. The figure that appeared was that of a woman clothed in loose white garments that fell to her feet. Her eyes were black and her long black hair fell over her shoulders. I suspected at the time who she was, but each one in the circle was so certain she came for him or for her, that I said nothing, and only mentally asked if it were my sister that I might receive a proof of her ident.i.ty. On the following evening (Sunday) Colonel Lean and I were "sitting" together, when Emily came to the table to a.s.sure us that it was she whom we had seen, and that she would appear again on Monday and show herself more clearly. I asked her to think of some means by which she could prove her ident.i.ty with the spirit that then spoke to us, and she said, "I will hold up my right hand." Colonel Lean cautioned me not to mention this promise to any one, that we might be certain of the correctness of the test. Accordingly, on the Monday evening we a.s.sembled for our second _seance_ with Mr. Eglinton, and the same form appeared, and walking out much closer to us, _held up the right hand_.

Colonel Lean, anxious not to be deceived by his own senses, asked the company what the spirit was doing. "Cannot you see?" was the answer.

"She is holding up her hand." On this occasion Emily came with all her old characteristics about her, and there would have been no possibility of mistaking her (at least on my part) without the proof she had promised to give us.

The next startling a.s.surance we received of her proximity happened in a much more unexpected manner. We were staying, in the autumn of the following year, at a boarding-house in the Rue de Vienne at Brussels, with a large party of English visitors, none of whom we had ever seen till we entered the house. Amongst them were several girls, who had never heard of Spiritualism before, and were much interested in listening to the relation of our experiences on the subject. One evening when I was not well, and keeping my own room, some of these young ladies got hold of Colonel Lean and said, "Oh! do come and sit in the dark with us and tell us ghost stories." Now sitting in the dark and telling ghost stories to five or six nice looking girls is an occupation few men would object to, and they were all soon ensconced in the dark and deserted _salle-a-manger_. Amongst them was a young girl of sixteen, Miss Helen Hill, who had never shown more interest than the rest in such matters.

After they had been seated in the dark for some minutes, she said to Colonel Lean, "Do you know, I can see a lady on the opposite side of the table quite distinctly, and she is nodding and smiling at you." The colonel asked what the lady was like. "She is very nice looking,"

replied the girl, "with dark eyes and hair, but she seems to want me to notice her ring. She wears a ring with a large blue stone in it, of such a funny shape, and she keeps on twisting it round and round her finger, and pointing to it. Oh! now she has got up and is walking round the room. Only fancy! she is holding up her feet for me to see. They are bare and very white, but her toes are crooked!" Then Miss Hill became frightened and asked them to get a light. She declared that the figure had come up, close to her, and torn the lace off her wrists. And when the light was procured and her dress examined, a frill of lace that had been tacked into her sleeve that morning had totally disappeared. The young ladies grew nervous and left the room, and Colonel Lean, thinking the description Helen Hill had given of the spirit tallied with that of my sister Emily, came straight up to me and surprised me by an abrupt question as to whether she had been in the habit of wearing any particular ring (for he had not seen her for several years before her death). I told him that her favorite ring was an uncut turquoise--so large and uneven that she used to call it her "potato." "Had she any peculiarity about her feet?" he went on, eagerly. "Why do you wish to know?" I said. "She had crooked toes, that is all." "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "then she has been with us in the _salle-a-manger_." I have never met Miss Hill since, and I am not in a position to say if she has evinced any further possession of clairvoyant power; but she certainly displayed it on that occasion to a remarkable degree; for she had never even heard of the existence of my sister Emily, and was very much disturbed and annoyed when told that the apparition she had described was reality and not imagination.

CHAPTER X.

THE STORY OF THE GREEN LADY.