“‘You are, my dear, permit me to say, in behalf of myself and these gentlemen, a little too hasty in your conclusions, too sweeping in your remarks, and in the characterization of the wonderful phenomena of these latter days. I know, my love, that you will give _me_ credit for rather more than the usual share of suspicion, scepticism, and doubt, regarding certain marvellous things said to have recently taken place in England, America, and even here in Paris. You know that it is my nature to admit nothing as proved--especially of such an implied nature--without absolute demonstrative evidence. The proof must be irrefragible--the testimony unbroken and indubitable, else I accept nothing. I certainly do not believe in spirits, much less that such things come to this world and flit and move around us, taking interest in all our affairs, and meddling with our business in a thousand ways, as it is alleged they do by those who believe in them. And yet, with all this, I confess that I have seen things that stagger me--indeed, that demonstrate beyond dispute the existence of a power, mighty, secret, occult, and working out its marvellous designs without the slightest human aid or influence whatever. Mind me, I do not attribute any or all of these results to spiritual agency, but I do say that the force at bottom is marvellously intelligent, and for all the world like that of man’s. For instance, you will remember F----, who came from America to astonish the French. Well, actuated by curiosity, I resolved to form one of a circle of six who had made arrangements to test his powers at his own rooms. Accordingly we met him by appointment at the Café Jououy near the Palaise Royal, and together we seven started for his hotel. Now, as I walked along, the idea suggested itself, that perhaps the fellow had made arrangements in his rooms to surprise us by a resort to some mountebankish performance, and therefore, in order to try his sincerity, and at the same time guard against any mere trickery or legerdemain, I suggested that we repair to apartments elsewhere than at his hotel. To my surprise he assented to this arrangement without a murmur, and we repaired to a room at the house of one of the company, Monsieur Benjamin, in the Rue de Clichy. When there, we all sat around a small table with our fourteen hands laid flat upon its top. For a while nothing occurred, save a few knocks or thumps upon the table, which F---- attributed to spirits, but which I suspected his knees produced. While thus we sat (it was broad daylight, and the sun shone brightly through the windows), we distinctly saw, and _I_ actually, palpably felt of, a _fifteenth_ hand. This hand was apparently solid flesh and blood. It appeared to be that of a mulatto girl of fifteen or sixteen summers, and one of the party subsequently told me in confidence that it was the very fac-simile of the right hand of a girl whom he once knew in the Isle de Bourbon, and who had