"I had one day been spending the morning in shopping, and returned by train just in time to sit down with my children to our early family dinner. My youngest child--a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden of two years and six weeks old--was one of the circle. Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recollected an incident in my morning's experience which I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child with the full intention of saying, 'Mother saw a big black dog in a shop, with curly hair,' catching her eyes in mine, as I paused an instant before speaking. Just then something called off my attention, _and the sentence was not uttered_. What was my amazement, about two minutes afterwards, to hear my little lady announce, 'Mother saw a big dog in a shop.' I gasped. 'Yes, I did!' I answered; 'but how did you know?' 'With funny hair,' she added, quite calmly, and ignoring my question. 'What colour was it, Evelyn?' said one of her elder brothers; 'was it black?' She said, 'Yes.'" I called on Mrs. Barber in the spring of 1886, and heard full details of the incident from herself and Mr. Barber, who, though not himself present at the time, was conversant with the facts. The incident took place on January 6th, 1882, and Mrs. Barber allowed me to see the note-book in which the account (substantially reproduced in the _Spectator_) was written down on January 11th. Of course there is always the possibility in a case of this kind that the lips may have unconsciously begun to form the words, but in the present instance it seems unlikely that any indication of the kind would have escaped the notice of the others present at the table. Mrs. Barber has given us other accounts, extracted from her journal, of thought-transference, in which the same percipient was concerned. She writes on December 26th, 1886:-- "On Wednesday J. went to London, and on getting his breakfast at a little inn in C----, he found a 'blackclock' (_i.e._, cockroach) floating in his coffee. He fished it out and supposed it was all right, but on pursuing the coffee he got one in his mouth! Next day, at breakfast, he said, 'What's the most horrible thing that could happen to any one at breakfast? I don't mean getting killed, or anything of that sort.' E. looked at him for a moment and said, 'To have a blackclock in your coffee!' "She was asleep in bed when her father returned the night before, and they met at the breakfast-table for the first time the next morning, when the question was asked quite suddenly. When asked how she came to think of it, she said, 'I looked at the bacon-dish, and thought a blackclock in the bacon,--no, he would see that--it must have been in the coffee.' "She has a special horror of 'blackclocks,' so the incident may merely have been one of the numerous instances of her unusually quick wit. "CAROLINE BARBER."