A correspondent of the Richmond Dispatch sends the following remarkable story to that paper :
    “The following strange occurrence happened in North Carolina and is strictly true in every detail—only names are concealed, and it is vouched for by responsible parties: A. short time ago my brother, my friend S—, and I were strolling out a short way from town when the subject of death was brought up, and we conjectured as to whether it were possible for the spirit of one dead to return to earth and make itself known. After discussing it awhile we three agreed that the spirit of the first of us who died should return and discover itself to the remaining two. We were all young and in vigorous health, and soon the agreement passed out of our minds. A few months after the above my friend S— left town to visit his mother in a neighboring village.
    The third night after his departure I dreamed that I was sitting with the family at the tea-table when a soft rap was heard at the door. I responded to it, and upon opening the door saw my friend standing in the hall. His face was bruised upon the right side so much as to be almost blue, his eyes had the glassy stare of death, and his lips were rigidly drawn as if in intense pain ; but particularly noticeable was a deep triangular cut over the right eye. Its appearance suggested some jagged instrument. With a ghastly smile he said : ‘I have come ; tell Charlie I want to see him.’ My brother at once turned as if to go to him, but I caught and violently restrained him, beseeching him the while not to go there, for I believed S— to be dead.
    The dream was so vivid that I awoke with a start of horror and aroused my brother, and was about to narrate to him my terrible dream, when, right in the doorway, with the same bruised face and ugly wound I had seen in my dream, stood S—gazing intently upon me. I nervously called my brother’s attention, but could not by any means persuade him to look where I directed. Only once, and that when he first woke up, did he cast his eyes toward the doorway. Fully two minutes the spectre-like figure stayed, then vanished, leaving my brother and myself sitting upright in bed conversing at the top of our voices. Our father in the adjoining room was disturbed by the commotion and came in to learn what the matter was. Being Informed he hooted the idea, and said it was nothing more than an unusual nightmare. Notwithstanding we did not sleep any more that night.
    The next day we received a message to the effect that S—had become dizzy while stooping to drink from a spring, had staggered and fallen, striking his head upon a sharp stone, causing instant death. My mother hastened to his home to sympathize with his bereaved parent, and learned that the location and shape of the wound was identically the same as I had seen in my dream and also as I saw upon awaking. The agreement we had made to return after death occurred to me, and I knew that S—had kept his promise.”

From— Alexandria Gazette. (Alexandria. D.C.). 27 June 1889. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.