y.

This paying of intentional astral visits seems very often to become
possible when the principles are loosened at the approach of death for
people who were unable to perform such a feat at any other time. There
are even more examples of this class than of the other; I epitomize a
good one given by Mr. Andrew Lang on p. 100 of the book last
cited--one of which he himself says, "Not many stories have such good
evidence in their favour."

"Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a
long illness, removed to her father's house at West Malling, about
nine miles from her own.

"The day before her death she grew very impatiently desirous to see
her two children, whom she had left at home to the care of a nurse.
She was too ill to be moved, and between one and two o'clock in the
morning she fell into a trance. One widow Turner, who watched with her
that night, says that her eyes were open and fixed, and her jaw
fallen. Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth, but could perceive no
breath. She thought her to be in a fit, and doubted whether she were
dead or alive.

"The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at
home with her children, saying, I was with them last night when I was
asleep.'

"The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms that a
little before two o'clock that morning she saw the likeness of the
said Mary Goffe come out of the next chamber (where the elder child
lay in a bed by itself), the door being left open, and stood by her
bedside for about a quarter of an hour; the younger child was there
lying by her. Her eyes moved and her mouth went, but she said nothing.
The nurse, moreover, says that she was perfectly awake; it was then
daylight, being one of the longest days in the year. She sat up in bed
and looked steadfastly on the apparition. In that time she heard the
bridge clock strike two, and a while after said: 'In the name of the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what art thou?' Thereupon the apparition
removed and went away; she slipped on her clothes and followed, but
what became on't, she cannot tell."

The nurse apparently was more frightened by its disappearance than its
presence, for after this she was afraid to stay in the house, and so
spent the rest of the time until six o'clock in walking up and down
outside. When the neighbours were awake she told her tale to them, and
they of course said she had dreamt it all; she naturally enough warml