SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS. 45 



curtains and appear between them. The dress 

 and the look of the apparition were precisely 

 those in which Mr. A.'s mother had been last 

 seen by Mrs. A. at Paris, in 1824. 



9. On the llth October, when sitting in the 

 drawing-room, on one side of the fire-place, she 

 saw the figure of another deceased friend moving 

 towards her from the window at the further end 

 of the room. It approached the fire-place, and 

 sat down in the chair opposite. As there were 

 several persons in the room at the time, she 

 describes the idea uppermost in her mind to have 

 been a fear lest they should be alarmed at her 

 staring, in the way she was conscious of doing, 

 at vacancy, and should fancy her intellect dis- 

 ordered. Under the influence of this fear, and 

 recollecting a story of a similar effect in your 

 work on Demonology, which she had lately read, 

 she summoned up the requisite resolution to 

 enable her to cross the space before the fire- 

 place, and seat herself in the same chair with the 

 figure. The apparition remained perfectly distinct 

 till she sat down, as it were, in its lap, when it 

 vanished. 



10. On the 26th of the same month, about 

 two P.M., Mrs. A. was sitting in a chair by the 

 window in the same room with her husband. 

 He heard her exclaim "What have I seen?" 

 And on looking at her, he observed a strange 

 expression in her eyes and countenance. A car- 

 riage-and-four had appeared to her to be driving 

 up the entrance-road to the house. As it ap- 

 proached, she felt inclined to go up stairs to 

 prepare to receive company, but, as if spell- 

 bound, she was unable to move or speak. The 

 carriage approached, and as it arrived within a 



