The Sunday after we reached home (having seen no friends in the meanwhile), we walked into Steinway Hall to hear Mr. Fletcher's lecture. At its conclusion he passed as usual into a state of trance, and described what he saw before him. In the midst of mentioning people, places, and incidents unknown to us, he suddenly exclaimed: "Now I see a very strange thing, totally unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I hardly know how to describe it. A man comes before me--a foreigner--and in a dress belonging to some monastic order, a brown robe of coarse cloth or flannel, with a rope round his waist and beads hanging, and bare feet and a shaved head. He is dragging a picture on to the platform, a very large painting in a frame, and it looks to me like a portrait of himself, kneeling on a carpet of burning wood. No! I am wrong. The man tells me the picture is _not_ a portrait of himself, but of the founder of his Order, and it is in the possession of some people in this hall to-night. The man tells me to tell these people that it was _his_ spirit that influenced them to buy this painting at some place over the water, and he did so in order that they might keep it in remembrance of what they have done for him. And he desires that they shall hang that picture in some room where they may see it every day, that they may never forget the help which spirits on this earth may render by their prayers to spirits that have passed away. And he offers them through me his heartfelt thanks for the assistance given him, and he says the day is not far off when he shall pray for himself and for them, that their kindness may return into their own bosoms." * * * * * The oil painting reached England in safety some weeks afterwards, and was hung over the mantel-piece in our dining-room, where it remained, a familiar object to all our personal acquaintances. CHAPTER XII. THE MEDIUMSHIP OF MISS SHOWERS.