Message, protestation and miracle being rejected, Mr. Blaisdel and his daughter returned without delay, but had no sooner reached home than a new order from the Spectre, consistent with Scripture, required that Mr. Hooper, who had been her father, and who lived about six miles off, should be conducted here the next morning. We now return to Mr. Butler’s family; not to see miracles, but their confirmation by the voice of common Providence. After Mr. Blaisdel and his daughter had left them, his conduct was naturally the subject of their discussion; and the more they reasoned, the more unaccountable it appeared. His notorious and inflexible opposition to this connection, which had continued several years, rendered him the most unlikely person in the world to pass a river, now the brink of death, for such a purpose. Their result was the necessity of further advice, and they unanimously chose Mr. Hooper, the young gentleman’s father in law, as the person best qualified to give it. Accordingly the son, Capt. Butler, went the next morning to consult with him on this affair; but to his great surprise found himself intercepted by messengers sent by the ghost for the same purpose, who had just finished their business with success. Capt. Butler asked what he should do. “The case is such,” said Mr. Hooper, “that I can have no advice to give.” Mr. Hooper, according to his promise, went off with the messengers; discoursed with the Spectre, and by the tokens which she gave him, identified his daughter. After the deliberation of several days, he, by the desire of the Spectre, went to Mr. Butler’s family, declared his conviction, and closed the message by solemn exhortation. Thus was the very man, whose advice they had preferred to a miracle, qualified by the Spectre to give it. But to recede: Mr. Hooper’s interview with the Spirit at Mr. Blaisdel’s house was immediately succeeded by the arrival of Capt. Butler there. He soon acquired evidence that the Spirit was that of his deceased wife, and declared that her will was his. But now to what purpose was all this labor and all these messages? For Miss Blaisdel was then asked if the same was her will? The reply was categorical and indignant; the purport of which was, that if she must die for her refusal, she desired to submit--that servile attentions, however miraculous the compulsion, would afford no satisfaction to her--that her trials were already intolerable by those false and wicked calumnies, which her compliance would now invigorate and render her life more bitter than death. That her attachment to his person was peculiar, she did not deny; but his credulous attention to these calumnies had rendered his society a burden.[17] At length, however, Capt. Butler’s unreserved and honorable confession, and his renewed assurances that his _own_ will was his, as well as that of his deceased wife, did, with the words of the Spectre prevail.