Only cupboards, where you keep our cast-off clothes." "You don't ask me what the world says about you, now," I said to her. "And I don't care," she answered. "Don't _you_ forget me! Good-bye!" She was succeeded by a spirit who called herself "Charlotte Cushman," and who spoke to me kindly about my professional life. Mrs. Hooker told me that, to the best of her knowledge, none of these three spirits had ever appeared under the doctor's mediumship before. But now came out "Florence," dancing into the room--_literally dancing_, holding out in both hands the skirt of a dress, which looked as if it were made of the finest muslin or lace, and up and down which fireflys were darting with marvellous rapidity. She looked as if clothed in electricity, and infinitely well pleased with herself. "Look!" she exclaimed; "look at my dress! isn't it lovely? Look at the fire! The more I shake it, the more fire comes! Oh, mother! if you could only have a dress like this for the stage, what a _sensation_ you would make!" And she shook her skirts about, till the fire seemed to set a light to every part of her drapery, and she looked as if she were in flames. I observed, "I never knew you to take so much interest in your dress before, darling." "Oh, it isn't the dress," she replied; "it's the _fire_!" And she really appeared as charmed with the novel experience as a child with a new toy. As she left us, a dark figure advanced into the room, and ejaculated, "Ma! ma!" I recognized at once the peculiar intonation and mode of address of my stepson, Francis Lean, with whom, since he had announced his own death to me, I had had no communication, except through trance mediumship. "Is that you, my poor boy," I said, "come closer to me. You are not afraid of me, are you?" "O, no! Ma! of course not, only I was at the Opera House, you know, with the others, and that piece you recited, Ma--you know the one--it's all true, Ma--and I don't want you to go back to England. Stay here, Ma--stay here!" I knew perfectly well to what the lad alluded, but I would not enter upon it before a stranger. So I only said, "You forget my children, Francis--what would they say if I never went home again." This seemed to puzzle him, but after a while he answered, "Then go to _them_, Ma; go to _them_." All this time he had been talking in the dark, and I only knew him by the sound of his voice. I said, "Are you not going to show yourself to me, Francis. It is such a long time since we met." "Never since you saw me at the docks. That was _me_, Ma, and at Brighton, too, only you didn't half believe it till you heard I was gone." "Tell me the truth of the accident, Francis," I asked him. "Was there foul play?" "No," he replied, "but we got quarrelling about _her_ you know, and fighting, and that's how the boat upset. It was _my_ fault, Ma, as much as anybody else's."