an article
on Spirit Faces, which was to me the source of troubles manifold. In the
first place, the inquirers into Spiritualism, whose name I found to be
legion, inundated me with letters, asking me to take them to the house
of pretty Miss Blank, the medium. Miss Blank might have been going on
till now, holding nightly receptions, without having exhausted her list
of self-invited guests; I had but one answer; the lady was a comparative
stranger to me, and not a professional medium; ergo, the legion must ask
some one to chaperone them elsewhere. Spirit Faces had got comparatively
common and almost gone out since I wrote. We are a long way beyond faces
now. Then, again, my second source of trouble was that forthwith, from
the date of my writing, the Spiritualists claimed me for their own, as
Melancholy did the young gentleman in Gray's elegy. Though I fancied my
paper was only a calm judicial statement of things seen, and I carefully
avoided saying whether I was convinced or not, I found myself nolens
volens enrolled among the initiated, and expected to devote about five
evenings out of the seven to seances. I did go, and do go still to a
great many; so that I feel pretty well posted up in the "Latest
Intelligence" of the Spiritual world. But the worst of all is that my
own familiar friends, in whom I trusted, have also lifted up their heels
against me--I mean metaphorically, of course. "What's the last new thing
in spirits?" they ask me out loud in omnibuses or railway carriages,
causing my fellow-travellers to look at me in doubt as to whether I am a
licensed victualler or a necromancer. As "bigots feign belief till they
believe," I really begin to have some doubts myself as to the state of
my convictions.

But I wish to make this paper again a simple statement of things heard
and seen--especially seen. I flatter myself the title is a nice, weird,
ghostly one, calculated to make people feel uncomfortable about the
small hours of the morning. Should such be the case--as they say in
prefaces--the utmost hopes of the writer will be realized. When last I
communicated my experiences, the ultimate end we had reached was the
appearance of a white counterpart of pretty Miss Blank's face at the
peep-hole of a corner cupboard. There were a good many more or
less--generally less--successful imitations of this performance in
various quarters, and the sensation subsided. Miss B. was still facile
princeps from the fact that she sto