This was less vague, and now for the first time a suspicion of the spirit's identity crossed my mind; but I would not go up until a name had been given, and I asked for this before leaving my seat. My travelling companion--a recent acquaintance--had never heard me mention the lady in question, who _had_ died in Germany at the time specified. The little child said the spirit would give the name through her, and the process was a curious one. Instead of mentioning the whole name or each letter of it to her father, the child _described_ each letter to him as you might describe the lines of the large capitals in a child's reading-book. The father guessed the letter from the child's description, and asked me if the first one were correct? It was; but I did not tell him so, merely saying I should like to have the Christian name in full before giving any opinion. In due time the six letters (Muriel, we will call it) were correctly given, and I had then no further excuse for refusing to speak to the spirit. I went up to the curtain, and she appeared in front of it. I have been frequently asked: "Should you have recognised her as your friend had no name been given?" With every wish to be perfectly truthful, I find it difficult to answer this question, for the following reason:--None of the "materialisations" I saw were exactly human in face. There was no idea of a mask or clever "get up," but if one could accept the theory of a body hastily put together and assumed for a time, the result is exactly what might have been expected under the circumstances. My friend in real life was very pale, and had exquisitely chiselled features, and the ones I now looked upon were of the same _cast_. The height was also similar, and an indescribable atmosphere of refinement, purity, and quiet dignity, for which she had been remarkable; all this was present with this materialisation. More than this I cannot say, for no materialisation I have ever seen could be truthfully considered _identical_ with the human original. I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, and naturally so, considering how unwilling and grudging my recognition of her individuality must have appeared. She seemed conscious of this, for almost immediately she mentioned her hands, holding them out for inspection, and saying: "Don't you remember my hands? I was so proud of my hands!" Now, as a matter of fact, my friend was noted for her beautiful hands, but she was too sensible and clever a woman to have been conceited about them, and had too much good taste ever to have made their beauty a subject of remark, even to an intimate friend. Moreover, the hands now _en evidence_, although well shaped and with tapering fingers, were as little identical with a human hand as the face was identical with a human face.