Casting about for something to say to her, my first thought was for an only and dearly loved married sister of hers, also a friend of mine, and I mentioned the latter in a guarded way, saying: "If you are in reality my friend, have you no message for _your sister_?" In a moment, and without the slightest hesitation, she said: "_Tell poor Jessie_," going on with a message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of the case, but of much too private a nature for publication. Almost immediately afterwards, and _with no shadow of suggestion from me_, she added: "_Poor Jessie! She suffered terribly when I passed away so suddenly._" My friend had died in a foreign country, under peculiarly sad circumstances. She was young, beautiful, and accomplished; a prominent local figure in the well-known capital where she had spent several winters. Her death was so sudden that there was not even time to put off a large afternoon "At Home" arranged for that day. Moreover, this sister, by a most merciful chance, happened to be spending a few months with her, out of England, at the time. These were all special facts, spontaneously referred to by her, but which would _not_ have applied equally well to the death of any other friend, even supposing such a death to have occurred abroad. The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty, "not having much strength," she told me. I asked if her father (who had died a few months previously) were with her. "Not yet," she said gently; "but I know that he has passed over." She then kissed my hand, and faded away before my eyes, not apparently returning to the curtain (close to which I stood), but vanishing into thin air. Some ten days later my friend and I went again to an evening _seance_ at the same house, different people being present on this occasion. A stupid, "_unintelligent_ sceptic" woman put us all out of harmony by making inane suggestions, always declaring that "_she would not for the world interfere with the conditions_," but doing so all the same. The "Angel Mother" came again, and rather lost her temper, I thought, with an aggravating, illogical man in the circle, who hammered away about Faraday's opinions on the spirit world without much idea of what he was talking about. "Nels Seymour" _appeared_, as well as spoke, this time. He took my hand and kissed it; but he does not leave the cabinet, as he is the "control." It was eleven years on this day since he had "passed over," so he called it his "birthday." A very beautiful female spirit materialised and offered to sit on my lap; an offer I closed with at once. She was some five feet eight inches in height, and a large, well-developed woman. Anticipating the possibility of her resting her feet on the ground, and so concealing her real weight, I moved my own feet from the ground the moment she sat down, which was easily done, as my chair was a high one.