its grey beard outside. On the
occasion of my second visit a lady present distinctly recognised this as
the face of her husband, and asked the form to show its hand as an
additional mark of identity. This request was complied with, the figure
lifting a thin, white and--as the widow expressed it--'aristocratic'
hand, and kissing it most politely. I am bound to say there was less
emotion manifested on the part of the lady than I should have expected
under the circumstances; and a young man who accompanied her, and who
from the likeness to her must have been her son, surveyed his
resuscitated papa calmly through a double-barrelled opera glass. I am
not sure that I am at liberty to give this lady's name; but, at this
second visit, Mrs. Makdougall Gregory, of 21, Green Street, Grosvenor
Square, positively identified the old lady above-mentioned as a Scotch
lady of title well known to her.

"I myself was promised that a relation of my own would appear on a
future occasion; but on neither of those when I attended did I see
anything that would enable me to test the value of the identifications.
The faces, however, were so perfectly life-like, with the solitary
exception of a dull leaden expression in the eye, that I cannot imagine
the possibility of a doubt existing as to whether they belonged to
persons one knew or not. At all events here is the opportunity of making
the test. No amount of scepticism is a bar to being present. The
appearances are not limited to a privileged few. All see alike: so that
the matter is removed out of the sphere of 'hallucinations.' Everything
is done in the light, too, as far as the faces are concerned. So that
several not unreasonable test-conditions are fulfilled in this case, and
so far a step made in advance of previous manifestations.

"We may well indeed pause--at least I know I did--to shake ourselves,
and ask whereabouts we are. Is this a gigantic imposture? or are the
Witch of Endor and the Cumaean Sibyl revived in the unromantic
neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, and under circumstances that
altogether remove them from the category of the miraculous? England will
take a good deal of convincing on this subject, which is evidently one
that no amount of 'involuntary muscular action,' or 'unconscious
cerebration,' will cover. What if the good old-fashioned ghost be a
reality after all, and Cock Lane no region of the supernatural?

"What then? Why, one may expect to meet one's deceased ance