654 A. From Phantasms of the Living, vol. ii. p. 97. The narrator is the late Rev. W. Mountford, of Boston, U.S.A., a minister and author of repute.

One day, some fifteen years ago, I went from the place of my abode to see some friends who resided in the fen districts of Norfolk. They were persons whom I knew, not merely well, but intimately. They were two brothers who had married two sisters. Their houses were a mile and a quarter apart, but standing on the same road, and with only two or three other habitations intervening. The road was a straight, bare, open road, like what is so often to be seen in the fens, and used chiefly and almost exclusively by the occupants of the few farms alongside of it. The house at which I was visiting stood about ten yards from the edge of the road. The day was fine and clear - a day in March. About four o'clock in the afternoon I stood at the window, and looking up the road I said, "Here is your brother coming." My host advanced to the window and said, "Oh yes, here he is; and see, Robert has got Dobbin out at last." Dobbin was a horse which, on account of some accident, had not been used for some weeks. The lady also looked out of the window, and said to me, " And I am so glad, too, that my sister is with him.

They will be delighted to find you here." I recognised distinctly the vehicle in which they rode as being an open one, also the lady and the gentleman, and both their dress and their attitudes. Our friends passed at a gentle pace along the front of the window, and then turning with the road round the corner of the house, they could not longer be seen. After a minute my host went to the door and exclaimed, "Why, what can be the matter ? They have gone on without calling, a thing they never did in their lives before. What can be the matter ? "

Five minutes afterwards, while we were seated by the fireside, the parlour door opened, and there entered a lady of about twenty-five years of age; she was in robust health and in full possession of all her senses, and she was possessed, besides, of a strong common-sense. She was pale and much excited, and the moment she opened the door she exclaimed, " Oh, aunt, I have had such a fright! Father and mother have passed me on the road without speaking. I looked up at them as they passed by, but they looked straight on and never stopped nor said a word. A quarter of an hour before, when I started to walk here, they were sitting by the fire; and now, what can be the matter? They never turned nor spoke, and yet I am certain that they must have seen me".

Ten minutes after the arrival of this lady, I, looking through the window up the road, said,"But see, here they are, coming down the road again." My host said, "No, that is impossible, because there is no path by which they could get on to this road, so as to be coming down it again. But sure enough, here they are, and with the same horse! How in the world have they got here ?" We all stood at the window, and saw pass before us precisely the same appearance which we had seen before - lady and gentleman, and horse and carriage. My host ran to the door and exclaimed, "How did you get here ? How did you get on to the road to be coming down here again now?" "I get on the road ? What do you mean? I have just come straight from home." "And did you not come down the road, and pass the house, less than a quarter of an hour ago?" "No," said the lady and gentleman both. " This is the first time that we have come down the road to-day." "Certainly," we all said, "you passed these windows less than a quarter of an hour ago. And, besides, here is Mary, who was on the road and saw you." "Nonsense!" was the answer. " We are straight from home, as you may be very sure.

For how could you have seen us pass by before, when you did see us coming down now ? " "Then you mean to say that really you did not pass by here ten or fifteen minutes ago ? " " Certainly; for at that time, probably, we were just coming out of the yard and starting to come here".

We all of us remained much amazed at this incident. There were four of us who had seen this appearance, and seen it under such circumstances as apparently precluded any possibility of our having mistaken some casual passengers for our intimate friends. We were quite satisfied that we had really not seen our bodily friends pass down the road that first time when we thought that we saw them. As for myself, I was sure that it was not they; and yet hardly could I help feeling that it could have been no persons else.

There is an old saying about keeping a thing ten years, and then finding a use for it. This curious experience of mine is as vivid in my mind as though it were of yesterday. Is it of use as illustrating mistakes as to identity, or is it rather a singular instance of what is called second-sight? M.

This account was first published in the Spiritual Magazine for August 1860. On our writing to Mr. Mountford on the subject, he replied: -

Beacon Street, Boston, U.S.A., 8th August 1884.

The narrative of which you have sent me a copy was written by myself, as you had rightly supposed. It was carefully prepared, and I believe it to be as exactly true as any report ever made by phonograph or photograph. At the time when the occurrence happened, I was simply amazed at it, and I felt but just simply as some untaught ploughman might have felt in the open field, if an aerolite had fallen at his feet, hot from the skies.

The persons besides myself, of whom I wrote in that account, were all of the family name of Coe, and were all of Islington, near King's Lynn; and they were all living at the time when I wrote about them, but they have all been carried away. I have only to add that Mrs. Robert Coe said that she and her husband knew of their daughter's having started to see her aunt, but that they had had no intention of following her till Mr. Robert Coe, suddenly starting from his chair by the fireside, exclaimed " Let us go to Clement's".