dren and myself were recreating for a
week in the woods and waters of Onset Bay, and while walking in the
gloaming through the grove, listening to the music of the band, we saw
a notice posted on a tree stating that the B---- sisters would give
a materializing seance in their cottage at this hour. We were all
skeptics of the most pronounced type, having seen much of the
contemptible trickery and fraud of so-called mediums; but we yielded
to the temptation to enter the seance room through mere curiosity.
Here we found in the "dim religious light," about a score of
intelligent looking ladies and gentlemen intently watching white-robed
figures which occasionally glided from a cabinet on a slightly
elevated stage and embraced people from the audience who were called
to meet them.

This ghostly procession interested us but slightly, until a form
whose features seemed strangely familiar, advanced to the edge of the
platform and beckoned my wife to come to her. On responding to the
invitation, she was at once encircled by the arms of the visitor,
kisses were exchanged, she was called distinctly "my dear sister,"
informed that the lady in white was Mary, my spirit-wife, who in
loving tones expressed her thanks for the kindly care that Lillian had
exercised over her three children, saying that she was always with her
to help. Suddenly, the form called for me, and I went to her as one
dazed.

"James," she said, "I am Mary, your wife." She embraced me with many
kisses as in the long ago, and continued: "I am so glad to see you
and Lillian, who has so lovingly taken my place; bless her for her
goodness to our children; my time here is so short." Then turning;
"Jot," she whispered to my brother, "come here;" she kissed him, said:
"Rebecca, father and mother are here in the cabinet, but too weak
to come out. We give you all our love and blessing; good-bye," and
disappeared through the floor at our feet.

There was no possible shadow of doubt about this visitation from the
unseen world. We had "felt the touch of the vanished hand, we had
heard the sound of the voice that is still," and henceforth we knew
that we walked hand in hand with angels. We realized unmistakably the
truth of the words of the poet Longfellow:

"The forms of the departed enter at the open door,
The beloved, the true hearted come to visit us once more,
And with them the being beauteous, who unto my youth was given
More than all things else to love me