my lungs were on the verge of bursting, I fervently
solicited the succour of my guardian spirit, and had no sooner done so,
than I fancied I felt soft hands press against my flesh, and the next
moment my body had risen to the surface. No living person was within
sight, so that my rescuer could only have been--as usual--my guardian
spirit.

Several times I fancy I have seen her, white, luminous, and shadowy,
but for all that suggestive of great beauty. Once, too, in the wilder
moments of my youth, when I contemplated rash deeds, I heard her sigh,
and the sigh, sinking down into the furthermost recesses of my soul,
drowned all my thoughts of rash deeds in a thousand reverberating
echoes. I have been invariably warned by strangers against taking a
false step that would unquestionably have led to the direst misfortune.
I meet a stranger, and without the slightest hint from me, he touches
upon the very matter uppermost in my mind, and, in a few earnest and
never-to-be-forgotten words of admonition, deters me from my scheme.
Whence come these strangers, to all appearance of flesh and blood like
myself? Were they my guardian spirit in temporary material guise, or
were they human beings that, like the hotel proprietor's friend in
Chicago, and the negro, have been impelled by my guardian spirit to
converse with me and by their friendly assistance save me? Many of the
faces we see around us every day are, I believe, attendant spirits, and
phantasms of every species, that have adopted physical form for some
specific purpose.

_Banshees_

It has been suggested that banshees are guardian spirits and evil genii;
but I do not think so, for whereas one or other of the two latter
phantasms (sometimes both) are in constant attendance on man, banshees
only visit certain families before a catastrophe about to happen in
those families, or before the death of a member of those families. As
to their origin, little can be said, for little is at present known.
Some say their attachment to a family is due to some crime perpetrated
by a member of that family in the far dim past, whilst others attribute
it to the fact that certain classes and races in bygone times dabbled in
sorcery, thus attracting the elementals, which have haunted them ever
since. Others, again, claim that banshees are mere thought
materialisations handed down from one generation to another. But
although no one knows the origin and nature of a banshee, the statements
of t