He used to say he didn't care for me any
more than if I had been "a spirit myself." One evening "Peter" called me
into the cabinet (which was simply a large box cupboard at one end of
the dining-room) before the _séance_ began, and told me to sit down at
the medium's feet and "be a good girl and keep quiet." Miss Showers was
in a low chair, and I sat with my arms resting on her lap. She did not
become entranced, and we talked the whole time together. Presently,
without any warning, two figures stood beside us. I could not have said
where they came from. I neither saw them rise from the floor nor descend
from the ceiling. There was no beginning to their appearance. In a
moment they were simply _there_--"Peter" and "Florence" (not my child,
but Miss Showers' control of the same names).
"Peter" sent "Florence" out to the audience, where we heard her speaking
to them and their remarks upon her (there being only a thin curtain hung
before the entrance of the cabinet), but he stayed with us himself. We
could not see him distinctly in the dim light, but we could distinctly
hear and feel him. He changed our ornaments and ribbons, and pulled the
hair-pins out of our hair, and made comments on what was going on
outside. After a while "Florence" returned to get more power, and both
spirits spoke to and touched us at the same time. During the whole of
this _séance_ my arms rested on Miss Showers' lap, and she was awake and
talking to me about the spirits.
One evening, at a sitting at Mr. Luxmore's house in Hyde Park Square,
the spirit "Florence" had been walking amongst the audience in the
lighted front drawing-room for a considerable time--even sitting at the
piano and accompanying herself whilst she sung us a song in what she
called "the planetary language." She greatly resembled her medium on
that occasion, and several persons present remarked that she did so. I
suppose the inferred doubt annoyed her, for before she finally left us
she asked for a light, and a small oil lamp was brought to her which she
placed in my hand, telling me to follow her and look at her medium,
which I accordingly did. "Florence" led the way into the back
drawing-room, where I found Miss Showers reposing in an arm-chair. The
first sight of her terrified me. For the purpose of making any change in
her dress as difficult as possible, she wore a high, tight-fitting black
velvet frock, fastened at the back, and high Hessian boots, with
innumerable buttons. But she now appeared to be shrunk to half her usual
size, and the dress hung loosely on her figure. Her arms had
disappeared, but putting my hands up the dress sleeves, I found them
diminished to the size of those of a little child--the fingers reaching
only to where the elbows had been. The same miracle had happened to her
feet, which only occupied half her boots. She looked in fact like the
mummy of a girl of four or six years old. The spirit told me to feel her
face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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