till more remarkable case of the
duplication of the body. A gentleman in Ohio, in 1833, had built a new
house, seventy or eighty yards distant from his old residence on the
other side of a small ravine. One afternoon, about five o'clock, his
wife saw his eldest daughter, Rhoda, aged sixteen, holding the youngest,
Lucy, aged four, in her arm, sitting in a rocking-chair, just within the
kitchen door of the new residence. She called the attention of another
sister to what she saw, and was startled to hear that Rhoda and Lucy
were upstairs in the old house. They were at once sent for, and on
coming downstairs they saw, to their amazement, their exact doubles
sitting on the doorstep of the new house. All the family
collected--twelve in all--and they all saw the phantasmal Rhoda and
Lucy, the real Rhoda and Lucy standing beside them. The figures seated
at the hall door, and the two children now actually in their midst, were
absolutely identical in appearance, even to each minute particular of
dress. After watching them for five minutes, the father started to cross
the ravine and solve the mystery. Hardly had he descended the ravine
when the phantasmal Rhoda rose from the rocking chair, with the child in
her arms, and lay down on the threshold. There she remained a moment or
two, and then apparently sank into the earth. When the father reached
the house no trace could be found of any human being. Both died within a
year.

A correspondent of my own, a dressmaker in the North of England, sends
me the following circumstantial account of how she saw her own double
without any mischief following:--

"I have a sewing-machine, with a desk at one side and carved legs
supporting the desk part; on the opposite side the machine part is. The
lid of the machine rests on the desk part when open, so that it forms a
high back. I had this machine across the corner of a room, so that the
desk part formed a triangle with the corner of the room. I sat at the
machine with my face towards the corner. To my left was the window, to
my right the fire; at each side of my chair the doors of the machine
walled me in as I sat working the treadles. Down each side of the
machine are imitations of drawers. The wood is a beautiful walnut. I was
sewing a long piece of material which passed from left to right. It was
dinnertime, so I looked down to see how much more I had to do. It was
almost finished, but there, in the space near the window, between the
wall