Again, there is an interesting case reported from New England by the Reverend Willis M. Cleaveland. Among Mr. Cleaveland's parishioners was a young woman, Miss Edith Wright, who developed mediumistic abilities, being controlled at times by what purported to be a discarnate spirit. Dreading notoriety, Miss Wright gave very few séances, and then only to her closest friends or to sitters with whom her friends were well acquainted, and in whose discretion they could place reliance. One of these was Mr. Cleaveland, who, being interested in psychical research, undertook to obtain, if possible, proof of the identity of the supposed communicating spirit. If you really are a spirit, he said in effect, you ought to be able to give us some facts about yourself, something about your history while you were on earth, with data that will enable us to obtain confirmation of what you say. The "control" readily conceded the reasonableness of this, and in the course of several séances made twenty-six personal statements, of which the most significant were: That her name was Amelia B. Norton. That she had been the daughter of an orthodox clergyman, of the "water type." That she had lived near the Kennebec River, in the State of Maine. That when writing letters it had been her custom to sign herself by the initials N. N., meaning Nellie Norton. That she had died in middle life. That when quite young she had had a love affair with a Mr. L. C. Brown, who was still living and engaged in business in Boston, at an address which the "spirit" gave. As goes without saying, Mr. Cleaveland at once wrote to Mr. Brown, and in a few days received a reply from him, in which he said: "I was out in the town of Sharon very recently, and called on an elderly gentleman who was a manufacturer there when I resided there as a boy in my teens. To my surprise, as we were reviving old recollections of fifty years ago, he spoke of a Miss Norton that he said I was sweet on at that time. "The facts of the case are that Mary B. Norton, who always signed herself Nellie B. Norton, came there, a young miss about my age. We were, I guess, ardent lovers, but in the course of two years I left the town and she did, and I knew very little of her for a few years after that. I think it was about five years later that on my way home from the White Mountains I stopped off at her home in Maine, which was beside a large river. I feel sure this was the Kennebec River. Her father was an orthodox minister, but I do not understand the meaning of the 'water type.' I think some two years later she was residing in Fairhaven and sent me some papers that contained letters written by Mary B. Norton, but from that time--some over forty years--I have not seen her. I heard that she died some years ago, and think she must have been about fifty years of age."