(260) "In 1871 I was staying at Norton House, Tenby, for the first time, and had just gone to bed, and was wide awake. I had the candle on my right side, and was reading. At the foot of the bed and to the right was a door, which was locked, and, as I learnt afterwards, pasted up on the other side.

"Through this I saw the figure of my future wife (the lady of the house) enter, draped in white from the head to foot. Oddly enough, I was not specially startled. My idea was that some one was ill, and that she had come to get something out of the room. I averted my head, and when I looked up again the apparition was gone. I suppose that I saw it for two or three seconds. "Alex. s. Beaumont,"

Mrs. Beaumont says: -

"February 24th, 1885.

"In 1872, two or three months after my marriage, Captain Beaumont and I returned from London to Tenby. I went up into my dressing-room and gave the keys of my luggage to my servant, Ellen Bassett. I was standing before the looking-glass with my back turned to her, and I heard her utter a little sharp cry. I turned round, saying,'What's the matter? ' and saw her with my nightcap in her hand. She said, ' O, nothing, nothing,' and I went downstairs. The day after, my husband saw her taking off the paper which pasted up the door between my bedroom and the dressing-room. He said, ' What are you doing? ' She said she was opening that door. He said, ' Why, the first night that I slept in this house, I saw your mistress walk through that door.' (I must explain that Captain Beaumont had been a guest in this house on a good many occasions before our marriage. On the occasion mentioned, he had imagined that perhaps someone was ill in the house, and that I had entered his room to get something, thinking him sure to be asleep.) Then the maid told him that she had seen me the night before we came home - she did not know exactly what day we were coming, and had been sleeping in the same bed as he had been in when he saw me.

She was just going to step into bed, when she saw me enter 'through the door,'1 with a nightcap on, and a candle in my hand. She was so terrified that she rushed out of the room by the other door, and told the other servants she was sure I was dead. They comforted her as well as they could, but she would not return to the room. The cause of her crying out, when I heard her do so, was that, in unpacking, she recognised the identical nightcap that the apparition had worn. The curious point is that the nightcap was one that I had bought in London, and had not mentioned to her, and was perfectly unlike any that I had ever worn before. It had three frills. I had been accustomed to wear nightcaps of coloured muslin without frills.

"The same servant, some months after the nightcap incident, went into the kitchen and said to the other servants, 'We shall have news of missus to-day; I've just seen her standing in the dining-room door; she had on a black velvet bonnet and black cloak.' (We had been in London some weeks.) This occurred about 9 o'clock a.m. About 10.30 she received a telegram from us to say we should be home that evening; the telegram was sent from Paddington Station as we waited for our train. The bonnet and cloak had been bought in town without her knowledge. "The maid was with me for years, and was certainly not nervous or hysterical. I have now parted with her for some years.

1 See p. 272, note.

" C. Beaumont.'*

The next case is from Mrs. Murray Gladstone, of Shedfield Cottage, Botley, Hants.

" January 18th, 1886.

(261) "I went on Saturday afternoon [last] to see an old man and woman named Bedford, who live in a cottage about half a mile from our house. Mrs. Bedford was ill in bed, and I went upstairs to see her. I sat down by the bedstead, and talked to her for a few minutes. Whilst I was there, the thought struck me that the light from the window, which was opposite the foot of the bed, was too strong for the invalid; and I determined, without saying a word about it to either Mr. or Mrs. Bedford, to give her a curtain. This (Monday) afternoon I again went to see the old couple; but this time I only saw Mr. Bedford in the room downstairs. And after a few remarks he said, 'My wife has seen you yesterday (Sunday) morning; she turned her head towards the side of the bed and said, "Is that her? " (I did not speak, as I thought she was dreaming.) "Yes," she went on, "it is Mrs. Gladstone, and she is holding up a curtain with both her hands " (imitating the posture), " but she says it is not long enough. Then she smiled and disappeared."' When Mr. Bedford had told me the above, I exclaimed,' That is just what I did yesterday morning whilst I was dressing.

I went to a cupboard in my room and took out a piece of serge, which I thought would answer the purpose, and held it up with both hands to see the length, and said to myself, "It is not long enough. " ' I may mention that I had only once before been to visit Mrs. Bedford, about a year ago, before I went on Saturday; and, of course, both times wore my walking dress. But when seen by Mrs. Bedford in this vision, she particularly noticed that I wore no bonnet, which must have been the case, as this occurred before 9 o'clock.

"Augusta Gladstone." Mrs. Gladstone adds: -

"Mrs. B. described me as being in white, and I asked her what I had on my head. She said, ' A thing like this' - taking hold of a woollen cap which I had given her. It was the facsimile of one which I must have had on at the time; and they were not common, for I had knitted them of wool and of a particular shape".

Mrs. Bedford has had one other hallucination, when she saw the figure of a young grandchild standing by her bedside. This, however, happened at night, and may have been half a dream.

When Mrs. Bedford described her experience to the present writer, she did not use the word curtain, and she did not recall the remark about the stuff not being long enough; which suggested that these items might have crept into the narrative after Mrs. Gladstone's side of the affair had been related. Mr. Bedford is, however, positive that they formed part of what his wife told him at the time, and before he saw Mrs. Gladstone; and Mrs. Gladstone is equally positive that they were included in his account to her, and also that she has herself heard of them from Mrs. Bedford.

The next example is from Colonel Bigge, of 2, Morpeth Terrace, S.W., who took the account out of a sealed envelope, in my presence, for the first time since it was written on the day of the occurrence.