ll
break of day."

"He hath not been ill, I trust," replied the priest.

"No, not ill; but I could not sleep," replied Amine.

"Then didst thou do well to pass the night--as I doubt not thou hast
done, my child--in holy watchings."

Philip shuddered; he knew that the watching, had its cause been known,
would have been, in the priest's opinion, anything but holy. Amine
quickly replied--

"I have, indeed, communed with higher powers, as far as my poor
intellect hath been able."

"The blessing of our holy Church upon thee, my child!" said the old
man, putting his hand upon her head; "and on thee too, Philip."

Philip, confused, sat down to the table; Amine was collected as ever.
She spoke little, it is true, and appeared to commune with her own
thoughts.

As soon as the repast was finished, the old priest took up his
breviary, and Amine beckoning to Philip, they went out together. They
walked in silence until they arrived at the green spot where Amine had
first proposed to him that she should use her mystic power. She sat
down, and Philip, fully aware of her purpose, took his seat by her in
silence.

"Philip," said Amine, taking his hand, and looking earnestly in his
face, "last night you dreamed."

"I did, indeed, Amine," replied Philip, gravely.

"Tell me your dream; for it will be for me to expound it."

"I fear it needs but little exposition, Amine. All I would know is,
from what intelligence the dream has been received?"

"Tell me your dream," replied Amine, calmly.

"I thought," replied Philip, mournfully, "that I was sailing as
captain of a vessel round the Cape: the sea was calm and the breeze
light; I was abaft; the sun went down, and the stars were more than
usually brilliant; the weather was warm, and I lay down on my cloak,
with my face to the heavens, watching the gems twinkling in the sky
and the occasionally falling meteors. I thought that I fell asleep,
and awoke with a sensation as if sinking down. I looked around me; the
masts, the rigging, the hull of the vessel--_all_ had disappeared, and
I was floating by myself upon a large, beautifully shaped shell on the
wide waste of waters. I was alarmed, and afraid to move, lest I should
overturn my frail bark and perish. At last, I perceived the fore-part
of the shell pressed down, as if a weight were hanging to it; and
soon afterwards a small white hand, which grasped it. I remained
motionless, and would have called out that my little bark wo