y impressed by the circumstances
to confide them to her kind professor, and also to pay more than one
visit to Mrs Stoddart Gray since the episode had occurred, which was
just six months before our meeting there.

During this second visit to America I made the acquaintance, and, I
trust I may say, gained the friendship, of Miss Lilian Whiting, so well
known by many thousands of grateful readers. We saw a great deal of each
other in Boston, and during one of my long chats with her in her pretty
sitting-room at the Brunswick Hotel, she told me of the visit of Lady
Henry Somerset and Miss Frances Willard to that city, some years before
our conversation. Miss Whiting also mentioned a friend who had
accompanied these two ladies, and who had been taken ill, and had died
very suddenly in the hospital at Boston.

"I never met the lady," said Miss Whiting, "but Miss Willard and Lady
Henry told me they had been obliged to leave their friend behind owing
to an attack of influenza, and asked me to call upon her someday. I went
a day or two later, carrying some fruit and newspapers with me. The
matron, whom I knew well, said her patient was doing splendidly, and was
likely to be leaving in a few days, but that as I was a stranger, it
would perhaps be better for me not to come in and see her that
afternoon. So I left my little gifts, and was shocked next day to hear
of her sudden and quite unexpected death. By-the-by, I believe she was
Stead's 'Julia'--I am not sure about this, but somebody told me so
lately."

Miss Whiting then mentioned the lady's name, which I withhold, as Mr
Stead still makes use of it as a test when strangers profess to be in
communication with "Julia."

The day following the _seance_ just described as taking place in New
York, Mr Knapton Thompson called at my hotel to ask me to accompany him
to Mrs Stoddart Gray, as he had arranged to have a short "_writing
seance_" that afternoon.

The son was the agent as usual. On this occasion he had an alphabet
mounted on card, and pointed to the letters in turn, whilst his mother
wrote them down as indicated. Thinking I would verify Miss Whiting's
story if possible, my first question was:

"Can Stead's Julia give me her surname?"

"Julia O." was spelt out, and then the O was given again.

"They often do that," said Mrs Gray casually--"begin the name over
again, I mean."

So it passed at that. The rest of the letters corroborated the surname
mentioned by Miss W