perstitions in connection with either.

It is necessary to give these few words of explanation before relating
an "incident in my life" for which I have always found it difficult to
account, except on the supposition that some germ of psychic
sensitiveness may exist, even under a hunting squire's "pink coat and
top-boots."

I have known Greba Hall since I was a child, and all its quaint old
family portraits, especially those in the fine oak-panelled hall, with
the old-fashioned open fireplace and "dogs" of the fifteenth century.
But there were so many of these pictures massed together that I have
never distinguished one from the other, with the exception of the few
immediate ancestors of my friend.

Some years ago I was staying with a lady who lived about three miles
from Greba, and we had driven over there to have tea with the Squire's
wife, whom I will call Mrs Lyon. The friend I have mentioned had become
interested in psychic matters since my acquaintance with her, and I had
discovered that she possessed some psychometric capacity.

In the interests of non-psychic readers, I may explain that psychometry
is the science of learning to receive impressions and intuitions from
the atmosphere surrounding any material object--a letter, a ring, a
piece of pebble or shell, and so forth. We seem capable of impressing
all material objects with our personality, and naturally this is
especially the case in letters written and signed by us.

The lady with whom I was then staying--Mrs Fitz Herbert--had tried
receiving impressions from letters several times, at my suggestion, and
always with more or less success. We had been speaking of this with Mrs
Lyon, who was always very sympathetic, and she suggested giving one of
her own letters to Mrs Fitz Herbert to be "psychometrised."

The latter was sitting facing a door which led from the hall to an inner
room, and over this door hung the half-length portrait of an old
gentleman, whom I had never specially remarked before, as the picture
was hung rather high, and there was nothing very characteristic about
the face.

Mrs Fitz Herbert glanced at the portrait once or twice as she held the
letter, and began her remarks upon the writer; but I had no reason to
suppose that the glance was other than casual and accidental.

She gave, however, a very remarkably accurate description (as it turned
out) of Mrs Lyon's unknown friend, both as to his character and the
special and rather uniq