44 TELEPATHIC MESSAGES 



to look for my gloves, with little hope that the 

 ravens had not succeeded in tearing them to pieces 

 in trying to devour them, or simply because of 

 their innate cussedness. 



This, then, was the sole subject occupying my 

 mind, when suddenly once more I had the strange 

 experience of a face fluttering before me — just a face 

 as on the former occasion, just as real in appearance, 

 at the same distance from my eyes, fluttering, moving 

 as if blown to and fro, appearing and disappearing 

 as before. 



It was the face of a lady, an intimate and dear 

 friend who was at a distance of something under 

 four hundred miles from me at that moment. 



As in the former case, I concluded that it was a 

 telepathic message, and in that belief I rest. Why 

 this phantasm appeared to me at that moment I 

 am not at liberty to tell, but there is now unhappily 

 no reason for the same reticence with regard to the 

 first case; death has prematurely removed the dear 

 souls who were the principal actors in that little 

 drama, and its relation can hurt no one. 



It was the case of a girl of fourteen I loved as much 

 as if she had been my own daughter, because of her 

 sweetness and charm and loving disposition, the bright 

 clear temper of her mind and other engaging qualities; 

 and I wished to adopt her — a desire or craving that 

 sometimes attacks a childless man. She too desired it, 

 but there were difficulties in the way which could not 

 be overcome, and so the matter was dropped, or rather 

 left for the time in abeyance. The appearance of that 



