Cases, such as the three last quoted, of the solitary appearance of a phantasmal figure, subsequently identified by description, photograph, or--as in Frances Reddell's case--actual encounter with the original, are rare; and experience shows how easy it may be for the somewhat vague image preserved in the memory to take on definite form and colour during the process, occasionally prolonged, of "recognition." The type cannot, therefore, be regarded as well established. As, however, such narratives have in some instances been regarded as affording evidence of the action of disembodied spirits, it seemed well to suggest that, if the facts are accepted, they are susceptible of another interpretation. _Haunted Houses._ But there are numerous cases to which the hypothesis of telepathic infection may be applied with perhaps less hesitation. The form which so-called "ghost stories" most commonly assume is the appearance of an unrecognised phantasmal figure. When the appearance is to one person only, or when, in the intervals of its appearance to others, the matter has been freely discussed amongst the members of the household, and the details of the figure described, we should probably be justified, on the analogy of hypnotic and epidemic religious hallucinations, in regarding the original appearance as purely subjective and the later ones as due to verbal suggestion and expectancy. But there are cases where, from the definite statements of the witnesses and the surrounding circumstances, it appears at all events extremely improbable that any mention was made of the original hallucination. In such cases it seems permissible to conjecture that the later apparitions, or some of them, may have been due to telepathic suggestion from the original percipient, to whom his solitary experience would naturally be a subject of frequent and vivid reflection. * * * * * I received the following account from the ladies concerned after a personal interview with one of them on February 27th, 1889, in the course of which I examined the scene of the apparition, the landing of a moderate-sized London house. The landing, though narrow, is well lighted, and it seems impossible that the appearance could have been a real person. The first experience, it will be seen, is a collective hallucination, of a type discussed in the preceding chapter. No. 94.--From MRS. KNOTT. "LONDON, S.W., _March_ 5_th_, 1889.