"About three years ago I was coming out of the dining-room one day, after lunch, with my sister. My mother had, as I supposed, preceded us upstairs, as usual. The library door, which faces the dining-room, stood wide open, and looking through it as I crossed the hall, I saw my mother in the library, seated at the writing-table, and apparently writing. Instead, therefore, of going upstairs, as I had intended, I went to the library door, wishing to speak to her, but when I looked in the room was empty.
"At the same moment, my sister, who had also been going towards the stairs in the first instance, changed her direction, and, crossing the hall, came up to the library door behind me. She then exclaimed, 'Why, I thought I saw mamma in the library, at the writing-table.' On comparing notes, we found that we had both seen her seated at the writing-table, and bending over it as if writing. My mother was never in the habit of writing in the library.
"I recollect her dress perfectly, as the impression was quite distinct and vivid. She had on a black cloak, and bonnet with a yellow bird in it, which she generally wore.
"It is the only time anything of the kind has happened to me. "M. J. MILMAN."
From MISS CAMPBELL.
"17 SOUTHWELL GARDENS, S.W.,
March 21st, 1888.
"My sister and mother and myself, after returning from our morning drive, came into the dining-room without removing our things, and had luncheon as usual, during which my sister and I laughed and cracked jokes in the gayest of spirits. After a time my mother rose and left the room, but we remained on for a few minutes. Finally we both got up and went into the passage, and I was about to go upstairs and take off my things when I saw my sister turn into my father's study (which was directly opposite the dining-room), with the evident intention, as I supposed, of speaking to my mother, whom I distinctly noticed seated at my father's desk in her cloak and bonnet, busily absorbed in writing. The door of the study was wide open at the time. I turned round and followed her to the door, when, to my surprise, my mother had completely disappeared, and I noticed my sister turned away too, and left the room as if puzzled. I asked her, with some curiosity, what she went into the room for? She replied that she fancied she saw my mother bending over the desk writing, and went in to speak to her. Feeling very much startled and alarmed, we went upstairs to see after her, and found her in her bedroom, where she went immediately on leaving the dining-room, and had been all the time. "E. J. CAMPBELL."
In the next case the apparition was recognised by one of the percipients only, as resembling a relative who had been dead some years. Neither percipient appears to have seen the face.
No. 82.—From MRS. J. C.
"August 20th, 1893.
"Seven years ago my husband and I had the following curious experience:—
"In the middle of the night I awoke with the feeling that some one was near me, and at once saw a figure moving from the side of my bed towards the wardrobe where I kept jewellery. My supposition was that it was a burglar, and I refrained from waking my husband (whose bed was two feet from mine), as I thought the burglar would be armed, and I knew my husband would certainly attack him and be at his mercy. I therefore lay perfectly still.
"The apparition having passed the foot of my bed, then came opposite my husband's, when, to my astonishment, I saw my husband sit up in bed gazing at the figure. In a moment or two he lay down again, and the figure apparently passed to the door.
"We neither of us spoke one word that night.
"In the morning I asked my husband to look if the doors were locked (of which there are three in the room). They were all secure. I also examined the beds to see if they by any possibility could have touched, and so I unconsciously have awakened him, but they were quite separate. I then asked if he remembered anything happening in the night, and he replied, 'Yes, a strange thing: I thought I saw my father go out of that door.' Not till then did I tell him that I thought the figure was a burglar, and how frightened I had been at the thought of his struggling with an armed man, and had therefore remained silent.
"The gas was burning, and I could see quite across the room."
I received a full account of the incident orally from Mrs. C. on the 20th August 1893. She told me that she never saw the face of the figure, and could not see, or cannot now recollect, the dress. She had no doubt at the time that it was a burglar. Mrs. C. has had no other hallucination of any kind.
Mr. C. writes on the 21st August 1893:—