ies
or such like things, but one thing she knew beyond all possibility of
doubt. She had seen her new home and laundry on the top of Hindhead,
when living in the west country six months before she ever set foot in
Surrey, or even knew of the existence of Mrs. M. "The moment I saw it I
recognised it and told my husband that it was the identical place I had
seen when in our old home."

_William Howitt's Vision._

The Housekeeper's story is very simple, and almost too commonplace. But
its significance lies in those very characteristics. Here was no
consuming passion, no bond of sympathy, nothing whatever material or
sentimental to act as the refracting medium by which the Hindhead
laundry could have been made visible in South Devon. Yet similar
phenomena are of constant occurrence. A very remarkable case in point is
that of William Howitt who, when on a voyage out to Australia, saw his
brother's house at Melbourne so plainly that he described it on board
ship, and recognised it the moment he landed. Here is his own version of
this remarkable instance of clairvoyance:--

"Some weeks ago, while yet at sea, I had a dream of being at my brother's
at Melbourne, and found his house on a hill at the further end of the
town, and next to the open forest. His garden sloped a little down the
hill to some brick buildings below; and there were greenhouses on the
right hand by the wall, as you look down the hill from the house. As I
looked out of the window in my dream, I saw a wood of dusky-foliaged
trees having a somewhat segregated appearance in their heads--that is,
their heads did not make that dense mass like our trees. 'There,' I said
to some one in my dream, 'I see your native forest of eucalyptus!'

"This dream I told to my sons and to two of my fellow-passengers at the
time, and on landing, as we walked over the meadows, long before we
reached the town, I saw this very wood. 'There,' I said, 'is the very
wood of my dream. We shall see my brother's house there! And so we did.
It stands exactly as I saw it, only looking newer; but there, over the
wall of the garden, is the wood, precisely as I saw it and now see it as
I sit at the dining-room window writing. When I looked on this scene I
seem to look into my dream." (Owen's "Footfalls," p. 118.)

The usual explanation of these things is that the vision is the revival
of some forgotten impressions on the brain. But in neither of the
foregoing cases will that explanation su