On the 4th of April, 1860, there died in India a young officer in the 12th Regiment M.N.I., of the name of John Powles. He was an intimate friend of my first husband for several years before his death, and had consequently become intimate with me; indeed, on several occasions he shared our house and lived with us on the terms of a brother. I was very young at that time and susceptible to influence of all sorts--extremely nervous, moreover, on the subject of "ghosts," and yet burning with curiosity to learn something of the other world--a topic which it is most difficult to induce anybody to discuss with you. People will talk of dress, or dinner, or their friend's private affairs--of anything, in fact, sooner than Death and Immortality and the world to come which we must all inevitably enter. Even parsons--the legalized exponents of what lies beyond the grave--are no exceptions to the rule. When the bereaved sufferer goes to them for comfort, they shake their heads and "hope" and "trust," and say "God's mercy has no limits," but they cannot give him one reasonable proof to rest upon that Death is but a name. John Powles, however, though a careless and irreligious man, liked to discuss the Unseen. We talked continually on the subject, even when he was apparently in perfect health, and he often ended our conversation by assuring me that should he die first (and he always prophesied truly that he should not reach the age of thirty) he would (were such a thing possible) come back to me. I used to laugh at the absurdity of the idea, and remind him how many friends had made the same promise to each other and never fulfilled it. For though I firmly believed that such things _had_ been, I could not realize that they would ever happen to me, or that I should survive the shock if they did. John Powles' death at the last was very sudden, although the disease he died of was of long standing. He had been under the doctor's hands for a few days when he took an unexpected turn for the worse, and my husband and myself, with other friends, were summoned to his bedside to say good-bye to him. When I entered the room he said to me, "So you see it has come at last. Don't forget what I said to you about it." They were his last intelligible words to me, though for several hours he grasped my dress with his hand to prevent my leaving him, and became violent and unmanageable if I attempted to quit his side. During this time, in the intervals of his delirium, he kept on entreating me to sing a certain old ballad, which had always been a great favorite with him, entitled "Thou art gone from my gaze." I am sure if I sung that song once during that miserable day, I must have sung it a dozen times. At last our poor friend fell into convulsions which recurred with little intermission until his death, which took place the same evening.