The bright spirit world is everywhere
      And to each is appointed some care
    To guide earth’s children on their way
      Amid the poor, as well as the gay
    We dwell in fields of labor and love
      Guiding thousands in true relms [sic] above.

    Many things I would love to rehearse
      Which would be written for me in verse
    But so many are here to await
      Their joyous messages to relate
    Many friends with me are ever near
      To guide our brother Horace dear.—­

    By Blind Harry.

     For a gentleman who gives his name W——­ H——.’

The sealed envelope scarcely needed to be opened at the back for interior inspection; its exterior bore ample and all-sufficing evidence that the seals had been broken, and the gum softened; the fingers which had again pressed down the gummed edge were not as unsullied as ’Sister Belle’s’ white rose.

This communication from the Spirit world gave me pause.  Here was food for reflection.  It settled many points in dispute among the scientific Ghosts.  First:  they were all right on the question of sex; but Hare, Combe and Cornelia Winnie were wrong as to color.  Sister Belle is not a negress, her hair is not black and in kinks, it is golden, and its curls are three feet in length, moreover, a white rose is her emblem.  And what a sad domestic tragedy have I not here unearthed.  In reading between the lines of these verses we learn that what darkened the life of this true and loving woman was a mercenary husband, and that this husband survived her, and in his unhallowed greed sold her body, and this, too, at so exorbitant a price, that it required the united purses of three doctors to induce him to close the bargain.

Secondly:  by the message from W——­ H——­, that most sedate and respectful of all respectful colored servants, the moralist may learn anew the truth that Death is a leveller of all distinctions.  Not even when the Emperor Charlemagne appeared at a Materializing Seance in a dress-coat and standing collar, and apologetically remarked that ’Kings leave their ermine, sir, at the door of the tomb,’ not even then was this great truth driven so profoundly home as when W——­ H——­ greeted me by my Christian name, and hailed me ‘brother.’

Need it be added that I gratefully remitted to Medium Number Three a double fee, and do yet consider myself many times her debtor?  Her gratitude to me found expression in another outburst of song.

Had the identity of the original owner of the skull been my sole object, I might well have rested content.  I had found the owner, and she had claimed her own.  She was ‘Sister Belle,’ and confessed to that rare combination of golden hair with black eyes, like Lady Penelope Rich, Sir Philip Sydney’s first love.  But my duty as a member of this Commission compelled me to complete my investigations, and make application to the fourth and last Medium for answering Sealed Letters.