The mother seemed very anxious to see them; but suddenly the gas was turned up, and the _seance_ declared over--a very abrupt finale to a piece of unmitigated humbug, I should say. These extracts sufficiently show the spirit in which I entered upon my investigations and the result of that spirit. I think even Mr Podmore would have considered me _thoroughly sound_ on that first evening. I have no doubt that the violence of Mrs Porter's antagonism, and the smiling cynicism of Mrs Hall in face of the "American experience" she had proposed for us, added to my own preconceived prejudices. I am aware that the Berry Sisters have been "exposed," thus sharing the fate of all other public mediums. In the light of later experiences, however, I feel sure that I might have received something personally evidential on this occasion had my attitude of mind given hospitality to any possible visitors from the Unseen. The next extracts from my diary refer to a _seance_ which we attended in New York a few days after our arrival there, and some two or three weeks later than the Boston sitting already described. Our stay in Boston had extended to three months from the original fortnight we had planned for the visit. I had taken a few very good introductions there: to Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, Colonel Wentworth Higginson, and others of the Boston _alumni_, and as several receptions had been kindly arranged for us, and my name had appeared many times during the winter in various local papers, it would have been easy for the Sisters Berry to find out something about me and my companion, and utilise the knowledge by faking up a convenient spirit, who could have talked glibly of my literary tastes, and so forth. Nothing of the sort occurred, however, although our first _seance_ only took place a week or two before we left Boston, after my three months' stay there. This fact should certainly be "counted as righteousness" to the much abused Sisters! It was the more curious, that our first _seance_ in New York, within a few days of our arrival, and in a metropolis where at the time we were _absolute strangers_, should have been so much more successful as regards evidential experiences. I will again quote from my diary of 1886. The medium visited on this occasion was Mrs Cadwell, who has since died. * * * * * We knew nothing beforehand of the medium, who lived in a small flat in an unfashionable quarter. Some eight people only were assembled in the extremely small room. All were perfect strangers to Miss Greenlow and me, but a fancied likeness in one lady present to a picture I had seen of Mrs Beecher Stowe led me to ask if it were she, and I was told that my surmise was correct. There was no room for a cabinet, so a curtain was hung across a tiny alcove, just the ordinary "arch" found in most rooms of the kind.