I
left my legs behind me when I went into a certain theater.

I dreamed that the ticket the man gave me for my legs was No. 19, and I
was worried all through the performance for fear No. 61 should get hold
of them, and leave me his instead. Mine are rather a fine pair of legs,
and I am, I confess, a little proud of them--at all events, I prefer
them to anybody else's. Besides, number sixty-one's might be a skinny
pair, and not fit me.

It quite spoiled my evening, fretting about this.

Another extraordinary dream I had was one in which I dreamed that I
was engaged to be married to my Aunt Jane. That was not, however, the
extraordinary part of it; I have often known people to dream things like
that. I knew a man who once dreamed that he was actually married to his
own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he loved the
alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he did that
morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to his real
wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days, after that
dream.

No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a dream.
"What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought to myself,
in my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We shall have a deal
of trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this thought quite troubled me
until the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well, it's only a dream."

And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out
about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter
out between themselves.

It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and alarming,
to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall awake soon
and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish perplexity
with a smile then.

Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing, and
then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the fretful
play is but a dream--a brief, uneasy dream of three score years and ten,
or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will awake--at least,
he dreams so.

How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams--waking dreams, I
mean--the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly
hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his
footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert
sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happin