escorts (we, of course, in deepest of crapes, and dropping with fatigue[11]) ascended the outer steps of this bridge, and moved forward toward the stage, to which we came very near. But the violence of speech and action by Anderson, who barred the way at the other end, held us back. Mr. Partridge spoke from the stage, and Judge Edmonds and Dr. Gray from their places, relating the facts, how we had that moment returned from burying our dead, exhausted with fatigue and hunger, and heart-broken with grief, but had yielded to their appeals to us to come instantly to meet the challenge which had been addressed to us and to Spiritualism, with the simple condition that the money staked by Anderson should go not to us but to a public charity. It may be imagined what effect all this produced upon the audience. "Fair play to the Rochester knockings!" "Fair play to the sisters!" etc., etc., mingled with hisses, seemed to come from every throat. A very little more, and I believe the "Wizard of the North" would have been mobbed on his own stage. But finding that we could not gain admission to it while he thus barred the way, and it being plain and patent to everybody that he had backed down, and that we and Spiritualism were incontestably triumphant, the crape-draped figures, with their highly honorable escort, withdrew as they had come, and glad were we to get back home and to disrobe ourselves of our travelling dresses. The next day the papers told how Anderson had backed down, and for a week following redoubled crowds flocked to our receptions with their congratulations. [11] In this I but followed in the rut of custom. I do not now approve of crapes and lugubrious mourning. Why thus parade insignia of mourning for the mere disappearance of those whom we know to be now more alive than when they were fettered by the bonds of sublunary life--far, far happier and higher--and not less near and loving to us than they had been when we could see, hear, and feel them with our natural senses? Our immoderate grief only grieves them. Spiritualism will, one day, put an end to the trade in crape, "and," the scribe might well add, "the enormous exactions of the undertaker, which often impoverish the living but sincere mourners." The conjurer might, of course, have been sued by us for his $1,000, for the benefit of a charity; but we were satisfied, and cared no further for that or for him. He never renewed the challenge, or if he ever did, in any distant place when we were not there to respond (as is likely enough, for such is a conjurer's trick), we never heard of it.