one more child by my first marriage--a daughter with exceedingly fair skin and hair, who would prove to be the cleverest of all my children, and that after her birth I should never live with my husband again. All these events were most unlikely to come to pass at that time, and, indeed, did not come to pass for years afterwards, yet each one was fulfilled, and the daughter who, unlike all her brothers and sisters, is fair as a lily, will be by no means the last in the race for talent. Yet these cards were laid four years before her birth. Mrs. Thorpe told me she had learnt the art from a pupil of the identical Italian countess who used to lay the cards for the Emperor Napoleon. But it is not an art, and it is not to be learnt. It is inspiration. Many years after this, when I had just begun to study Spiritualism, my sister told me of a wonderful old lady, a neighbor of hers, who had gained quite an evil reputation in the village by her prophetical powers with the cards. Like Mrs. Thorpe, she had become afraid of herself, and professed to have given up the practice. The last time she had laid them, a girl acquaintance had walked over joyously from an adjacent village to introduce her affianced husband to her, and to beg her to tell them what would happen in their married life. The old lady had laid the cards, and saw the death card turn up three times with the marriage ring, and told the young people, much to their chagrin, that they must prepare for a disappointment, as their marriage would certainly be postponed from some obstacle arising in the way. She told me afterwards that she dared not tell them more than this. They left her somewhat sobered, but still full of hope, and started on their way home. Before they reached it the young man staggered and fell down dead. No one had expected such a catastrophe. He had been apparently in the best of health and spirits. _What_ was it that had made this old lady foresee what no one else had seen?