We feared a lecture of some kind, for the time
when we were lectured was generally after morning
prayer. Some of us, I amongst the number,
thought guiltily that we had talked of Miss
Hake. But now, Miss Lloyd looked more woeful
than stern, and, drawing from her pocket a
letter with a deep black edge, and a large black
seal, said, in a sad voice, 'My dears, I am
sorry to inform you I have just had a letter
to tell me that your young comrade and friend,
Miss Hake, is dead. She died last Saturday
night at a little before eight o'clock. I need
not point out to you, that, as this was the
hour when Miss Bridgeman thought she saw
Miss Hake, the idea of her having then been
in the house was a fancy and a delusion. Take
care, my dears, how you give way to fancies.
I dare say Miss Bridgeman was a little unwell,
a little timid, at being left alone in the dusk
of the evening, and took the window-curtain
for Miss Hake."

"But, grandmamma," we used to ask her,
"did you really take the window-curtain for
Miss Hake?"

"No! my dear children. I saw both window-
curtain and Miss Hake as clearly as I now
see you."

"But then, grandmamma," we used always to
object, "if you did not take the window-curtain
for Miss Hake, if you saw her as plainly as
you do us, why will you not allow you saw a
ghost?"

"Because, my dears, I do not believe in
ghosts."

"But, grandmamma, you saw Miss Hake
quite plainly. Now, do say, as plainly as I see
you at this moment?"

"Quite as plainly."

"And yet you do not believe you saw a
spirit?"

"Not a bit of it!"

This was all we could ever get out of my
grandmother, and I believe it set me thinking
on these matters long afterwards.

It was an Honourable Envoy extraordinary
at the court of Saxony who informed me that
his brother Alfred was residing at the time of
the following apparitional impression, on his
living in Ireland; that there was an old aunt of
theirs, also in Ireland, but residing at some
distance from the clergyman, who was much looked
up to by the family; that the clergyman, Mr.
Alfred, was desirous to consult her on some
family matters that rather occupied his mind;
but, that, though he knew she was ailing, he
was unable, from a pressure of parochial duties,
to go to her.

Mr. Alfred and his wife were in bed, in a
room which opened into their drawing-room.
Having not long retired, they had scarcely yet
fallen into the incipient dreaminess of semi-
slumber, when they were roused by hearing a
voice in the adjoining apartment. "Good
Heavens!" said Mrs. Alfred to her husband, "it
is the voice of your aunt." The clergyman at
once recognised that it was so. Both he and
his wife, of course, imagined that the old lady
had burst upon them with a sudden visit, and
perhaps on some emergent occasion. But the
voice said, "Don't be frightened; but get up,
Alfred, and come to me. I don't want your wife. I
will not have her leave her bed on any account."
Mrs. Alfred would have remonstrated, and
would have got up, but the voice was imperative,
and as she knew the old lady to have a
wilfulness of character that would not be trifled
with, she remained where she was, while her
husband, hastily throwing on a few clothes and his
dressing-gown, proceeded with the light which he
had struck, into the next room: leaving,
however, the door between it and the bedroom
partly open. In the sitting-room he found
his aunt, attired as usual in plain old-fashioned
neatness (in a brown dress), sitting on a
sofa: from which she did not, on his entrance,
rise, but, waving away, as it were, all
ceremonials of greeting, signed to the clergyman
to take his place beside her. He did so, and
the old lady then entered on a long conversation
with him, every word of which, as uttered
by the two colloquists, was heard by Mrs.
Alfred as she lay in bed in the next room.
The old lady had been something of a sceptic
on certain points connected with religion.
These she first discussed, professing a more
assured belief than formerly. After that, she
entered at length upon family matters, and
gave Mr. Alfred all the advice and information
he required, on the subjects then agitating
his mind. The information was valuable; was
such as no one but the old lady in question
could have furnished him with; and
subsequently proved of material advantage to
his interests. When all this had come to an
end, the aunt rose from the sofa, and repelling,
by a significant gesture, any hand-shaking or
nearer approach to her person, seemed to melt
out of the room—in a way so unlike an ordinary
departure, that, for the first time, Mr.
Alfred was roused out of a strange bewildered
state into a feeling of dread. He, however,
hurried after his aunt, whom he supposed to
be descending the stairs. No aunt was there.
The household were then roused, and the
house was searched, with the same negative
result. That the aunt had not been there in the
body was proved by the intelligence, received
a day or two afterwards, of her having been
lying in bed dying—observe! not dead—at the
time when the clergyman and his wife had
supposed they were receiving indubitable tokens
of her doubted presence.

This story, not only as regards the impression
on two senses, but on the two senses of two
separate persons, coming to me from an
unimpeachable source, I have always considered of
the highest interest. It would show that, in
some cases, the cerebral agitation of a dying
person is sufficiently strong to impress two
brains—either immediately, or by transmission
from one to the other.

There is, moreover, reason to suspect that
even a non-moribund brain, in particular emotive