th the sign of Aries at one end. I have since realised that
this is very much like the "Staff of Faith" found on the top of many of
the tombs in the Roman catacombs. All these latter emblems come together
as a rule, with a connecting thread binding them to each other. I cannot
see them at will, but when the atmosphere is at all clear they are
rarely absent, when I have time to look for them. I was much amused once
by an earnest Christian scientist, with whom I happened to be spending a
few days on the coast of the eastern counties. She had warned me
repeatedly against "phenomena" of every kind, spontaneous or induced. On
a specially bright morning we were sitting together in a beautiful park,
which is thrown open to strangers on special days, and, forgetting my
companion's prejudices, I exclaimed involuntarily:

"I never saw my signs more clearly than just now!--there must be
something very pure about the atmosphere."

This was too much for my friend, who bent forward eagerly, saying:--"_Do
let me try if I cannot see them too!_"

Well, she "tried" for the greater part of two hours, but absolutely in
vain, and then got up, and suggested going home to luncheon. She added
naively: "I _thought_ they must have something wrong about them, and I
am quite sure of it now, _or I should have seen them_."

But it had taken her two hours of failure to be absolutely convinced
that they came straight from the devil!

One sign--also birds--appeared to me on one occasion only. We had
returned to Denver, where Miss Greenlow and I were to separate after a
year's constant travel together. She was going back to San Francisco to
take steamer for the Sandwich Islands, and thence on to Australia;
whilst I was returning to England for family reasons.

I had arranged to dine with the hospitable Dean of Denver the evening of
the day of her departure, and I had not realised how much less lonely
one would have felt had my journey East corresponded more closely with
her journey West, especially as she was obliged to leave the hotel about
nine o'clock in the morning.

Waking early, and lying in bed, feeling very melancholy at the idea of
being left behind and alone in the very centre of America, I looked up,
and, to my delight, saw a new sign.

Not my little birds this time, but two big, plump father and mother
birds, with a short string attached, not horizontally as before, but
perpendicularly. At the end of this little string was a tiny bir