ver seen could be truthfully considered
_identical_ with the human original.

I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, and naturally so,
considering how unwilling and grudging my recognition of her
individuality must have appeared. She seemed conscious of this, for
almost immediately she mentioned her hands, holding them out for
inspection, and saying:

"Don't you remember my hands? I was so proud of my hands!"

Now, as a matter of fact, my friend was noted for her beautiful hands,
but she was too sensible and clever a woman to have been conceited about
them, and had too much good taste ever to have made their beauty a
subject of remark, even to an intimate friend.

Moreover, the hands now _en evidence_, although well shaped and with
tapering fingers, were as little identical with a human hand as the face
was identical with a human face.

Casting about for something to say to her, my first thought was for an
only and dearly loved married sister of hers, also a friend of mine, and
I mentioned the latter in a guarded way, saying: "If you are in reality
my friend, have you no message for _your sister_?"

In a moment, and without the slightest hesitation, she said: "_Tell poor
Jessie_," going on with a message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of
the case, but of much too private a nature for publication.

Almost immediately afterwards, and _with no shadow of suggestion from
me_, she added:

"_Poor Jessie! She suffered terribly when I passed away so suddenly._"

My friend had died in a foreign country, under peculiarly sad
circumstances. She was young, beautiful, and accomplished; a prominent
local figure in the well-known capital where she had spent several
winters. Her death was so sudden that there was not even time to put off
a large afternoon "At Home" arranged for that day. Moreover, this
sister, by a most merciful chance, happened to be spending a few months
with her, out of England, at the time. These were all special facts,
spontaneously referred to by her, but which would _not_ have applied
equally well to the death of any other friend, even supposing such a
death to have occurred abroad.

The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty, "not having much strength,"
she told me.

I asked if her father (who had died a few months previously) were with
her.

"Not yet," she said gently; "but I know that he has passed over." She
then kissed my hand, and faded away before my eyes, not apparentl