he sport than
the boy. When the cat died we none of us dared to break the news to the
child, and were much surprised when he asked us to say why his cat only
came to play with him at nights nowadays. When we questioned him about
it, he stoutly maintained that his cat was there in bodily form every
night after he went to bed, looking much the same but a little thinner.

At about the same age, one evening after being in bed one hour, I heard
him cry out, and going upstairs (his maid also heard and ran up) and
asking him what was the matter, he said that an old gentleman with a
long grey beard like his grandfather came into his room, and stood at
the front of his bed. At the very moment, the former had a seizure in
his carriage while driving through the streets of Birmingham, from which
he died without regaining consciousness; later on he recognized a
photograph of his grandfather as being the person he saw at the foot of
his bed. My wife, the maid, and myself can vouch for the accuracy of
these statements, also friends to whom we have related these facts.

"MUNSTER."

Letter 6

_Mrs. E.J. Ellis's Story--"The Old Woman's Cat"_

My wife, writes Mr. Ellis, who was brought up in Germany, and who is not
sufficiently confident about her English to attempt to put down anything
for publication in that language, tells me the following story for the
_Occult Review_:--

"When I was a little girl living with my family near Michelstadt in the
Odenwald, I remember an old woman like an old witch, whose name was
Louise, and who was called 'Pfeiffe Louise,' because she exhibited pipes
for sale in her cottage window, along with the cheap dress-stuffs,
needles and threads, and simple toys for children which were her
stock-in-trade. She had a favourite cat which was devoted to her, but
its attachment doesn't seem to have been enough to make her happy, for
she married a young sergeant named Lautenschlager, who might have been
her son--or indeed her grandson--and who, as everyone said, courted her
for her money. She died as long ago as 1869, and during her last illness
the devoted cat was always with her. It kept watch beside the body when
she was dead, and refused to be driven away. In a fit of exasperation
Lautenschlager seized it, carried it off, and drowned it in the little
River Mumling, at a place where the road from Michelstadt to the
neighbouring village Steinbach runs near the water's edge. It was
border