On June 5th, 1887, a Sunday evening,[227] between eleven and twelve at night, being awake, my name was called three times. I answered twice, thinking it was my uncle, "Come in, Uncle George, I am awake," but the third time I recognised the voice as that of my mother, who had been dead sixteen years. I said, "Mamma!" She then came round a screen near my bedside with two children in her arms, and placed them in my arms and put the bedclothes over them and said, "Lucy, promise me to take care of them, for their mother is just dead." I said, "Yes, mamma." She repeated, "Promise me to take care of them." I replied, "Yes, I promise you"; and I added, "Oh, mamma, stay and speak to me, I am so wretched." She replied, "Not yet, my child," then she seemed to go round the screen again, and I remained, feeling the children to be still in my arms, and fell asleep. When I awoke there was nothing. Tuesday morning, June 7th, I received the news of my sister-in-law's death. She had given birth to a child three weeks before, which I did not know till after her death.
I was in bed, but not asleep, and the room was lighted by a gaslight in the street outside. I was out of health, and in anxiety about family troubles. My age was forty-two. I was quite alone. I mentioned the circumstance to my uncle the next morning. He thought I was sickening for brain fever. [I have had other experiences, but] only to the extent of having felt a hand laid on my head, and sometimes on my hands, at times of great trouble.
Lucy Dodson.
Mr. C. H. Cope, who sent the case, wrote in answer to our questions:—
BRUSSELS, October 17th, 1891.
I have received replies from Miss Dodson to your inquiries.
(1) "Yes [I was] perfectly awake [at the time]."
(2) "Was she in anxiety about her sister-in-law?" "None whatever; I did not know a second baby had been born; in fact, had not the remotest idea of my sister-in-law's illness."
(3) "Did she think at the time that the words about the children's mother having just died referred to her sister-in-law? Had she two children?" "No, I was at a total loss to imagine whose children they were."
(4) "I was living in Albany Street, Regent's Park, at the time. My sister-in-law, as I heard afterwards, was confined at St. André (near Bruges), and removed to Bruges three days prior to her death. (N.B.—She had two children including the new-born baby.)"