from Marie, and accordingly I took with me to one of the seances a little trinket, and told the Spirit that I would give it to her if she would just write down for me a few words expressive of this pleasure, and, as she was disappearing into the Cabinet, I thrust a writing-tablet and a pencil into her hand.  Before the seance closed, she reappeared to me, and handing me a paper claimed my promise.  In full faith I gave her the little breast-pin, and after the seance, to my chagrin, I found the writing on the paper was not from her, but a message from my ‘father,’ announcing that he had ’found the next life a great truth,’ which was, certainly, cheering, in view of the fact that he was enjoying the present in so remarkably hearty and healthy a manner.

For the next seance I provided an amber necklace, on whose clasp I had ‘Marie’ engraved, and when the Spirit of the fair French girl appeared, I taxed her with her naughty, deceitful ways, and told her that I would not give her the necklace, which I had brought for her, until she gave me what I asked for, in her own writing.  In a very few minutes she reappeared and handed me a paper, whereon she had written:  ’I am so glad you have kept them so nicely, Your Marie.’ (As her skull was shared by Sister Belle, I suppose Marie was strictly logical, if ungrammatical, in referring to it as ‘them.’) It was enough; in a few minutes after, Marie reappeared wearing the amber beads glistening round her neck.

No sooner had I given the necklace than occurred another illustration of the remarkable and amiable pliancy with which Materialized Spirits will answer to any name with which they are addressed.  The Medium who conducted the seance came to me and said, ’There’s a Spirit in the Cabinet who says she’s your niece.’  Very thoughtlessly I replied, ’But I haven’t any niece in the Spirit world.’  The instant after I had spoken, I felt my mistake.  You must never repel any Spirit that comes to you.  It throws a coolness over your whole intercourse with that particular Spirit-band; no Spirit from it will be likely to come to you again.  No surface of madrepores is more sensitive to a touch than a Cabinet full of Spirits to a chilling syllable of failure.  To regain my lost position, therefore, I said hastily, ‘But can it be Effie?’ (It was a mere hap-hazard name; I know no ‘Effie.’) The Medium went to the Cabinet and returned with the answer, ’She says she’s Effie, and she wants to see you.’  Of course, I went with alacrity to where the curtains of the Cabinet stood open, and there, just within it, saw a Spirit whom I recognized as having appeared once before during the evening with Marie, when the latter had materialized as a sailor-boy, and the two had danced a Spiritualist horn-pipe to the tune of ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave.’  ’Oh, Effie dear,’ I said, ‘is that you?’ ’Yes, dear Uncle, I wanted so much to see you.’  ‘Forgive me, dear,’ I pleaded, ‘for having forgotten you.’  ‘Certainly I will, dear Uncle, and won’t you bring me a necklace, too?’ ‘Certainly, dear,’ I replied, ‘when I come here again.’  I have never been there since.