in the semi-somnambulic state often took this position on the sofa. It corresponds exactly to that of Mme. Recamier in David's well-known picture.) A gentleman who often took part in the séances, who had some slight resemblance to the writer, was also one of her sons from that period. Around this core of relationship there grouped themselves, more or less intimately connected, all the persons in any way related or known to her. One came from the fifteenth century, another--a cousin--from the eighteenth century, and so on. From the three great family stocks grew by far the greater part of the present European peoples. She and her brothers and sisters are descended from Adam, who arose by materialisation; the other then-existing families, from whom Cain took his wife, were descended from apes. S. W. produced from this circle of relationship an extensive family-gossip, a very flood of romantic stories, piquant adventures, etc. Sometimes the target of her romances was a lady acquaintance of the writer's who for some undiscoverable reason was peculiarly antipathetic to her. She declared that this lady was an incarnation of a celebrated Parisian poisoner, who had achieved great notoriety in the eighteenth century. She maintained that this lady still continued her dangerous work, but in a much more ingenious way than formerly; through the inspiration of the wicked spirits who accompany her she had discovered a liquid which when merely exposed to the air attracted tubercle bacilli and formed a splendid developing medium for them. By means of this liquid, which she was wont to mix with the food, the lady had brought about the death of her husband (who had indeed died of tuberculosis); also one of her lovers, and of her own brother, for the sake of his inheritance. Her eldest son was an illegitimate child by her lover. As a widow she had secretly borne to another lover an illegitimate child, and finally she had had an unnatural relationship with her own brother (who was later on poisoned). In this way S. W. spun innumerable stories, in which she believed quite implicitly. The persons of these stories appeared in the drama of her visions, as did the lady before referred to, going through the pantomime of making confession and receiving absolution of sins. Everything interesting occurring in her surroundings was incorporated in this system of romances, and given an order in the network of relationships with a more or less exact statement as to their pre-existences and the spirits influencing them. It fared thus with all who made S. W.'s acquaintance: they were valued at a second or first incarnation, according as they possessed a marked or indefinite character. They were generally described as relatives, and always exactly in the same definite way. Only subsequently, often several weeks later, after an ecstasy, there would make its appearance a new complicated romance which explained the striking relationship through