accept her statement that she has written while fresh from
"conversion," and is speaking for the first time the language of a
Christian and a Catholic. The supernatural element of her memoirs it is
not worth while to discuss. Were she otherwise worthy of credit, we
might exonerate her personal veracity by assuming that she was tricked
over the apparition and hallucinated in the vision that followed it, but
I propose submitting to my readers sufficient evidence to justify a
conclusion that she does not deserve our credit, and though out of
deference to her sex it is desirable, so far as may be possible, to
speak with moderation, I must establish most firmly that the motive she
betrays in her memoirs is not in many respects preferable to that of the
previous witness.

It will be advisable, however, to distinguish that part of the narrative
for which Miss Vaughan is admittedly and personally responsible from
that which she claims to be derived from her family history. I must
distinguish between them, not that I am prepared to admit as a
legitimate consequence of her statement that there is any real
difference or that I unquestionably regard Miss Vaughan as having
created a strong presumption that she is in possession of the documents
which she claims to have. I am simply recognising the classification
which she may herself be held to make. If in this respect it can be
shown that I have mistaken the actual position, I will make such
reparation as may be due from a man of letters, whose reasonable
indignation in the midst of much imposture will, in such case, have
misled him. But there is only one course which is open to Miss Vaughan
in the matter, and that is to produce the original documents on which
she has based her narrative for the opinion of competent English
investigators, in which case Miss Vaughan may be held to have
established not the truth of her family history, which is essentially
beyond establishment, but her _bona fides_ in connection with its
relation. After this the portion for which she is personally
responsible, and from which there is no escape, will still fasten the
charge of falsehood ineffaceably upon her narrative.

In addition, then, to her personal history, Miss Vaughan's memoirs
contain:--I. A mendacious biography of the English mystic, Thomas
Vaughan. II. A secret history of the English Rosicrucian Fraternity, and
of its connection with Masonry, which is also an impudent fraud. The two
constit