in spite of the distance--you both influenced _me_. And in that
way, mesmerism would account for my vision as the necessary result of a
highly developed sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with
the child in your arms?"

"Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of my
resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn situation, forsaken
in a strange place, I dreamed of you again, and I appealed to you again
as my one protector and friend. The only new thing in the dream was,
that I thought I had the child with me when I approached you, and that
the child put the words into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw
the words, I suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I
awoke? I found the child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms.
All through the night there was no change in her. She only recovered
her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start? What have I said that
surprises you?"

There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On the
day and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had stood on
the deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of her disappear
from my view.

"Did she say anything," I asked, "when she recovered her senses?"

"Yes. She too had been dreaming--dreaming that she was in company with
you. She said: 'He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have been showing
him the way.' I asked her where she had seen you. She spoke confusedly
of more places than one. She talked of trees, and a cottage, and a lake;
then of fields and hedges, and lonely lanes; then of a carriage and
horses, and a long white road; then of crowded streets and houses, and
a river and a ship. As to these last objects, there is nothing very
wonderful in what she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which
she saw in her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from
London to Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places,
especially the cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can only
suppose that her dream was the reflection of mine. _I_ had been dreaming
of the cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in years long gone by;
and--Heaven only knows why--I had associated you with the scene. Never
mind going into that now! I don't know what infatuation it is that makes
me trifle in this way with old recollections, which affect me painfully
in my present position. We were talking of the child's health; let us go
back to