eemed a very complete
manner, and even held conversations with persons in the circle. Finally,
I heard it whispered that these faces were being recognised on a
somewhat extensive scale at the seances of Mrs. Holmes, in Old Quebec
Street, where certain other marvels were also to be witnessed, which
decided me on paying that lady a visit.

"Even these, however, were not the principal attractions which drew me
to the tripod of the seeress in Quebec Street. It had been continually
urged as an argument against the claims of Modern Spiritualism, first,
that it shunned the light and clave to 'dark' circles; secondly, that it
was over-sensitive on the subject of 'sceptics.' Surely, we are all
sceptics in the sense of investigators. The most pretentious disciple of
Spiritualism does not claim to have exhausted the subject. On the
contrary, they all tell us we are now only learning the alphabet of the
craft. Perhaps the recognised Spirit-faces may have landed us in words
of one syllable, but scarcely more. However, the great advantage which
Mrs. Holmes possessed in my eyes over all professors of the new art was
that she did not object to sceptics. Accordingly to Quebec Street I
went, for the distinct purpose of testing the question of recognition.
If I myself, or any person on whose testimony I could rely, established
a single case of undoubted recognition, that, I felt, would go farther
than anything else towards solving the spiritualistic problem.

"I devoted two Monday evenings to this business; that being the day on
which Mrs. Holmes, as she phrases it, 'sits for faces.' On the former of
the two occasions twenty-seven persons assembled, and the first portion
of the evening was devoted to the Dark Seance, which presented some
novel features in itself, but was not the special object for which I
was present. Mrs. Holmes, who is a self-possessed American lady,
evidently equal to tackling any number of sceptics, was securely tied in
a chair. All the circle joined hands; and certainly, as soon as the
light was out, fiddles, guitars, tambourines and bells did fly about the
room in a very unaccountable manner, and when the candle was lighted, I
found a fiddle-bow down my back, a guitar on my lap, and a tambourine
ring round my neck. But there was nothing spiritual in this, and the
voice which addressed us familiarly during the operation may or may not
have been a spirit voice.

"Mrs. Holmes having been released from some very perpl