e."

"Yes, but I wasn't meaning her eyes, or her hair, or her hearing."

"Oh,--then pray what were you pleased to mean?"

"Did you happen to notice what she said about a--er--Man with,
a--Tiger-Mark?" enquired Bellew, still gazing up at the moon.

Anthea laughed:

"The Man with the Tiger-Mark,--of course! he has been much in her
dreams, lately, and she has talked of him a great deal,--"

"Has she?" said Bellew, "ha!"

"Yes,--her mind is full of strange twists, and fancies,--you see she is
so very old,--and she loves to tell me her dreams, and read the
future for me."

"Though, of course, you don't believe it," said Bellew.

"Believe it!" Anthea repeated, and walked some dozen paces, or so,
before she answered,--"no, of course not."

"Then--none of your fortune,--nothing she told you has ever come true?"

Once more Anthea hesitated, this time so long that Bellew turned from
his moon-gazing to look at her.

"I mean," he went on, "has none of it ever come true,--about this Man
with the Tiger-Mark, for instance?"

"No,--oh no!" answered Anthea, rather hastily, and laughed again. "Old
Nannie has seen him in her dreams--everywhere,--in India, and Africa,
and China; in hot countries, and cold countries--oh! Nannie has seen him
everywhere, but I have seen him--nowhere, and, of course, I
never shall."

"Ah!" said Bellew, "and she reads him always in your fortune, does she?"

"And I listen very patiently," Anthea nodded, "because it pleases her so
much, and it is all so very harmless, after all, isn't it?"

"Yes," answered Bellew, "and very wonderful!"

"Wonderful?--poor old Nannie's fancies!--What do you mean by wonderful?"

"Upon my word, I hardly know," said Bellew, shaking his head, "but
'there are more things in heaven, and earth,' etc., you know, and this
is one of them."

"Really!--now you grow mysterious, Mr. Bellew."

"Like the night!" he answered, turning to aid her across the impertinent
brook that chuckled at them, and laughed after them, as only such a very
impertinent brook possibly could.

So, betimes, they reached the stile, and crossed it, this time without
mishap, despite the lurking nail and, all too soon for Bellew, had
traversed the orchard, and were come to the garden where the roses all
hung so still upon their stems that they might have been asleep, and
filling the air with the perfume of their dreams.

And here they paused, perhaps because of the witchery of the moon,
perhaps t