She will not be a child;
But a fair maiden in her father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace.
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion,
Shall we behold her face!"
The first séance made such an impression on my mind that two nights afterwards I again presented myself (this time alone) at Mrs. Holmes' rooms to attend another. It was a very different circle on the second occasion. There were about thirty people present, all strangers to each other, and the manifestations were proportionately ordinary. Another professional medium, a Mrs. Davenport, was present, as one of her controls, whom she called "Bell," had promised, if possible, to show her face to her. As soon, therefore, as the first spirit face appeared (which was that of the same little girl that I had seen before), Mrs. Davenport exclaimed, "There's 'Bell,'" "Why!" I said, "that's the little nun we saw on Monday." "O! no! that's my 'Bell,'" persisted Mrs. Davenport. But Mrs. Holmes took my side, and was positive the spirit came for me. She told me she had been trying to communicate with her since the previous séance. "I know she is nearly connected with you," she said. "Have you never lost a relation of her age?" "Never!" I replied; and at that declaration the little spirit moved away, sorrowfully as before.
A few weeks after I received an invitation from Mr. Henry Dunphy (the gentleman who had introduced me to Mrs. Holmes) to attend a private séance, given at his own house in Upper Gloucester Place, by the well-known medium Florence Cook. The double drawing-rooms were divided by velvet curtains, behind which Miss Cook was seated in an arm-chair, the curtains being pinned together half-way up, leaving a large aperture in the shape of a V. Being a complete stranger to Miss Cook, I was surprised to hear the voice of her control direct that I should stand by the curtains and hold the lower parts together whilst the forms appeared above, lest the pins should give way, and necessarily from my position I could hear every word that passed between Miss Cook and her guide. The first face that showed itself was that of a man unknown to me; then ensued a kind of frightened colloquy between the medium and her control. "Take it away. Go away! I don't like you. Don't touch me—you frighten me! Go away!" I heard Miss Cook exclaim, and then her guide's voice interposed itself, "Don't be silly, Florrie. Don't be unkind. It won't hurt you," etc., and immediately afterwards the same little girl I had seen at Mrs. Holmes' rose to view at the aperture of the curtains, muffled up as before, but smiling with her eyes at me. I directed the attention of the company to her, calling her again my "little nun." I was surprised, however, at the evident distaste Miss Cook had displayed towards the spirit, and when the séance was concluded and she had regained her normal condition, I asked her if she could recall the faces she saw under trance. "Sometimes," she replied. I told her of the "little nun," and demanded the reason of her apparent dread of her. "I can hardly tell you," said Miss Cook; "I don't know anything about her. She is quite a stranger to me, but her face is not fully developed, I think. There is something wrong about her mouth. She frightens me."
This remark, though made with the utmost carelessness, set me thinking, and after I had returned home, I wrote to Miss Cook, asking her to inquire of her guides who the little spirit was.
She replied as follows: