none has been found which is entirely satisfactory. What adds to the
difficulty to my mind is that the metamorphosis occurred when Mrs.
Tebrick was a full-grown woman, and that it happened suddenly in so
short a space of time. The sprouting of a tail, the gradual extension of
hair all over the body, the slow change of the whole anatomy by a
process of growth, though it would have been monstrous, would not have
been so difficult to reconcile to our ordinary conceptions, particularly
had it happened in a young child.

But here we have something very different. A grown lady is changed
straightway into a fox. There is no explaining that away by any natural
philosophy. The materialism of our age will not help us here. It is
indeed a _miracle_; something from outside our world altogether; an
event which we would willingly accept if we were to meet it invested
with the authority of Divine Revelation in the scriptures, but which we
are not prepared to encounter almost in our time, happening in
Oxfordshire amongst our neighbours.

The only things which go any way towards an explanation of it are but
guesswork, and I give them more because I would not conceal anything,
than because I think they are of any worth.

Mrs. Tebrick's maiden name was certainly Fox, and it is possible that
such a miracle happening before, the family may have gained their name
as a _soubriquet_ on that account. They were an ancient family, and have
had their seat at Tangley Hall time out of mind. It is also true that
there was a half-tame fox once upon a time chained up at Tangley Hall in
the inner yard, and I have heard many speculative wiseacres in the
public-houses turn that to great account--though they could not but
admit that "there was never one there in Miss Silvia's time." At first I