Moving in formation

Both my father-in-law and my husband are dead. I know of no independent way in which I can fix the date of the apparition, but I know that my husband and I had been to church tha.t afternoon, and if you look at any almanack for 1864, you will see that December 18th in that year was on a Sunday, and that was the day on which my mother died. We find from the Times obituary that Mrs. Ranking died on Sunday, December 18, 1864, after a short illness. I have had a thoroughly satisfactory interview with Mrs. B., who is anything but a sentimental witness. She showed me a photograph of D. Hall, which made it evident that the face at the window cannot have belonged to a real person. Even a tall man's head could not have been visible from inside the room where the party were sitting, the ledge being more than 6 feet from the ground ; and there was nothing under the window to climb up by. Still, the father-in-law would not be persuaded but that it was a real face, though of course totally unable to account for it. He was certain he knew the face, though unable to put a name to it. He had seen Mrs. Ranking only twice. It is practically certain that he had never had any other hallucination ; and he was most unwilling to regard this as one. The death was very sudden, from dysentery. Mrs. B. distinctly remembers noting the time, 5.45, while her husband and father-in-law were searching. The light was bright firelight. In the next two cases we have the feature of gradual formation, as well as delayed recognition.