e evening, now you are here," cried Lady Isabel. "It
will afford you a good rest; and tea will refresh you."

"Oh thank you, but we have taken tea," said Mrs. Hare.

"There is no reason why you should not take some more," she laughed.
"Indeed, you seem too fatigued to be anything but a prisoner with us for
the next hour or two."

"I fear I am," answered Mrs. Hare.

"Who the dickens are they?" Captain Levison was muttering to himself, as
he contemplated the guests from a distance. "It's a deuced pretty girl,
whoever she may be. I think I'll approach, they don't look formidable."

He did approach, and the introduction was made: "Captain Levison, Mrs.
Hare and Miss Hare." A few formal words, and Captain Levison disappeared
again, challenging little William Carlyle to a foot-race.

"How very poorly your mamma looks!" Mr. Carlyle exclaimed to Barbara,
when they were beyond the hearing of Mrs. Hare, who was busy talking
with Lady Isabel and Miss Carlyle. "And she has appeared so much
stronger lately; altogether better."

"The walk here has fatigued her; I feared it would be too long; so that
she looks unusually pale," replied Barbara. "But what do you think it is
that has upset her again, Mr. Carlyle?"

He turned his inquiring eyes upon Barbara.

"Papa came downstairs this morning, saying mamma was ill, that she had
one of her old attacks of fever and restlessness. I declare, as papa
spoke, I thought to myself could mamma have been dreaming some foolish
dream again--for you remember how ill she used to be after them. I ran
upstairs and the first thing that mamma said to me was, that she had had
one of those dreadful dreams."

"I fancied she must have outlived her fear of them; that her own plain
sense had come to her aid long ago, showing her how futile dreams are,
meaning nothing, even if hers do occasionally touch upon that--that
unhappy mystery."

"You may just as well reason with a post as reason with mamma when
she is suffering from the influence of one of those dreams," returned
Barbara. "I tried it this morning. I asked her to call up--as you
observe--good sense to her aid. And her reply was, 'How could she help
her feelings? She did not induce the dream by thinking of Richard, or
in any other way, and yet it came and shattered her.' Of course so far,
mamma is right, for she cannot help the dreams coming."

Mr. Carlyle made no immediate reply. He picked up a ball belonging to
one of the children, which la