eople looked forward with buoyant spirits to the
bright life so soon to dawn upon them.

"But fate decreed differently. While getting off a Fulton Street car one
day in 1864, on her return from school, the young lady slipped and fell
backward. Her skirt caught on the step unseen by the conductor, who
started the car on its way again. The poor girl was dragged some ten or
fifteen yards before her cries were heard and the brake applied. When
picked up she was insensible and was carried, suffering intense agony
from an injured spine, to her home near by. Forty-eight hours afterward
she was seized with a violent spasm which lasted for over two days. Then
came a trance, when the sufferer grew cold and rigid, with no evidence
of life beyond a warm spot under the left breast, where feeble
pulsations of her heart were detected by Dr. Speir. Only this gentleman
believed she was alive, and it was due to his constant assertion of the
girl's ultimate recovery that Miss Fancher was not buried. Despite the
best medical help and the application of restoratives, no change was
brought about in the patient's condition until the tenth week, when the
strange suspension of life ceased and breath was once more inhaled and
breathed forth from her lungs.

"To their dismay the doctors then found that Mollie had lost her sight
and the power of deglutition, the latter affliction rendering it
impossible for her to swallow food or even articulate by the use of
tongue or lip. Previous to her trance a moderate quantity of food had
been given her each day; but since then she has not taken a mouthful of
life-sustaining food. Spasms and trances alternated with alarming
frequency since Miss Fancher was first attacked. First her limbs only
became rigid and disturbed at the caprice of her strange malady; but as
time passed her whole frame writhed as if in great pain, requiring to be
held by main force in order to remain in the bed. She could swallow
nothing, and lay utterly helpless until moved."

In the _Sun_, of November 24th, 1878, a fuller account of this young
lady was given, mainly however, in regard to her "clairvoyant," or
"second-sight" power. Relative to her abstinence from food, I quote the
following conversation between the reporter and Dr. Speir.

"'Is it true that she has not partaken of food in all these thirteen
years?'

"'No: I cannot say that she has not; I have not been constantly with her
for thirteen years; she may have taken food