ll take her oath on't before a Magistrate and receive the
sacrament upon it, 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.

"Mrs. Alexander then walked out of doors till six, when she persuaded
some neighbours to let her in. She told her adventure; they failed to
persuade her that she had dreamed it. On the same day the neighbour's
wife, Mrs. Sweet, went to West Mulling, saw Mrs. Goffe before her
death, and heard from Mrs. Goffe's mother the story of the daughter's
dream of her children, Mrs. Sweet not having mentioned the nurse's
story of the apparition." That poor Mrs. Goffe walked to Rochester
and returned undetected, a distance of eighteen miles is difficult to
believe.

Goethe has an obiter dictum on the possibility of intercommunion
without the aid of the ordinary senses, between the souls of lovers.
Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in
common by husband and wife, but, in such cases, it may be urged that
the same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause,
may beget the same dream in both. A better instance is

THE VISION OF THE BRIDE

Colonel Meadows Taylor writes, in The Story of my Life (vol. ii., p.
32): "The determination (to live unmarried) was the result of a very
curious and strange incident that befel me during one of my marches to
Hyderabad. I have never forgotten it, and it returns to this day to
my memory with a strangely vivid effect that I can neither repel nor
explain. I purposely withhold the date of the year. In my very early
life I had been deeply and devotedly attached to one in England, and
only relinquished the hope of one day winning her when the terrible
order came out that no furlough to Eur