dle-aged lady of good proportions,
hair black, color flushed, the light eyes look weary, the lower face
rather square, deep lines around the mouth. She is evidently not in very
good humor. After a while the company, between twenty and thirty
persons, mostly women, get seated.

Owing to the many people present I could not see what preparations had
been made. Medium requests that the piano be moved against the door (to
keep off illicit Spirits?). Chair placed against the door. Light turned
out completely. Singing of "Sweet by-and-bye." Medium requests a lady to
invoke Divine blessing. Disgusting cant. More singing. Darkness
impenetrable. Sudden bumping noise on the table. Match struck by the
Colonel just as something crawls over my hand and falls to the floor. It
is a red-bellied terrapin. Some ferns appear neatly arranged on the
table in front and to the left of the Medium. Expressions of
gratification. Dark. Singing. A pine-bough is thrown against me.
Screaming on account of terrapin. Match. Several parties have large
lilies in front of them. My neighbor a lily of the valley (he states
that his wife said before he left: "I wish you would get a lily of the
valley"). Dark. Singing. Match. Dr. Leidy has some red lilies; some
smilax and a wreath are on the table. Great astonishment. Colonel Kase
says it is wonderful, but during the Centennial year they got tables
loaded with flowers (the Medium has not given a flower seance for some
years, she says, hence the rather meagre supply.) A lady points out the
fact that the flowers are quite cold and have a sort of dew on them. But
I found those before me quite dry, as if they had been in the room for
some time. The Medium is tired and retires. Mrs. X. is requested to come
under the influence of her Spirit-guides, and she does. She puts herself
in an oratorical posture, eyes closed, and reels off the common-places
of the _Banner of Light_: the Spirits are eager for investigation, but
benighted men in the flesh cannot make the conditions, and thus continue
to wallow in darkness. The Spirits are kind. They do not damn those poor
benighted ones, but still hold out, in beautiful optimism, the hope that
all those who do want to know the truth will find it!

Another lady, Mrs. Y., is now called upon to put herself under
Spirit-guidance, and she thereupon proceeds to enlighten the sheep-fold
how it is possible that these flowers and branches and turtles can come
through solid walls and