ale-authoress, I think, of two somewhat feeble novels, and much
pleasanter to look at than her books. She was, I thought, a good deal
excited at the prospect of spiritual revelations. Her neighbor was a
pallid, care-worn young woman, with very red lips, and large brown eyes
of great beauty. She was, as I learned afterwards, a magnetic patient of
the doctor, and had deserted her husband, a master mechanic, to follow
this new light. The others were, like myself, strangers brought hither
by mere curiosity. One of them was a lady in deep black, closely veiled.
Beyond her, and opposite to me, sat the sergeant, and next to him the
medium, a man named Brink. He wore a good deal of jewelry, and had large
black side-whiskers--a shrewd-visaged, large-nosed, full-lipped man,
formed by nature to appreciate the pleasant things of sensual existence.

Before I had ended my survey, he turned to the lady in black, and asked
if she wished to see any one in the spirit-world.

She said, "Yes," rather feebly.

"Is the spirit present?" he asked. Upon which two knocks were heard in
affirmation. "Ah!" said the medium, "the name is--it is the name of a
child. It is a male child. It is--"

"Alfred!" she cried. "Great Heaven! My child! My boy!"

On this the medium arose, and became strangely convulsed. "I see,"
he said--"I see--a fair-haired boy. I see blue eyes--I see above you,
beyond you--" at the same time pointing fixedly over her head.

She turned with a wild start. "Where--whereabouts?"

"A blue-eyed boy," he continued, "over your head. He cries--he says,
'Mama, mama!'"

The effect of this on the woman was unpleasant. She stared about her for
a moment, and exclaiming, "I come--I am coming, Alfy!" fell in hysterics
on the floor.

Two or three persons raised her, and aided her into an adjoining room;
but the rest remained at the table, as though well accustomed to like
scenes.

After this several of the strangers were called upon to write the names
of the dead with whom they wished to communicate. The names were spelled
out by the agency of affirmative knocks when the correct letters were
touched by the applicant, who was furnished with an alphabet-card upon
which he tapped the letters in turn, the medium, meanwhile, scanning his
face very keenly. With some, the names were readily made out. With one,
a stolid personage of disbelieving type, every attempt failed, until at
last the spirits signified by knocks that he was a disturbin