yellow light which streamed through the window of his
bedroom, making a hundred golden fancies on the worn carpet:

"The shadows of the coming flowers!
The phantoms of forget-me-nots,
And roses red and sweet!"

His eyes made pictures; his fancy inverted the hour-glass of his life, and
the old sands ran back! He floated down the stream of time, instead of
onward.

The sunshine grew deeper and broader, and filled the little room. Then it
became condensed and brighter. Gradually it moulded itself into form, and
little Bell, in her golden ringlets, stood at the side of Mortimer. Her
white hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up--not in surprise, but
with tenderness--with the air of a man who can gaze with unclouded eyes
into the spiritual world and lose himself.

"I knew you were near," he said, dreamily. "I thought you would come. You
have something to tell me. What is it, my little Bell? Thus you stood at my
side, thus you looked into my eyes, the day on which I told Daisy that I
loved her. Thus you come to me whenever the current of my life changes, to
love and advise me. What is it, Bell--dainty little Bell?"

A sunny lip rested on his for a moment.

"Be strong!" said little Bell.

A cloud of sunlight floated around Mortimer, slipped down at his feet, and
lost itself in the orange stream which flooded the window.

"He is dreaming of Bell," said Daisy, as she bent over him--"dreaming of
lost Bell!"

And she closed the door after her softly.

Then Mortimer's vision of sister Bell was a dream? Perhaps it was not.
Perhaps this real world is linked more closely to the invisible sphere than
in our guesses. It may be an angel's hand which touches our cheek, when we
think that it is only the breeze. _?Quien sabe?_ Who can say that in sleep
we do not touch hands with the spirits of another world--the angels of
hereafter? And what may death be but an intellectual dream!--Who knows?

Nobody knows. "But," suggests the gentle reader, "suppose you dispense with
your Hamlet-like philosophy, and go on with your story, like the pleasant
author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep, as you have your
hero."

Reader, the hint was merited.

IX.

"_My eyes make pictures when they are shut._"

COLERIDGE.

IX.

DAISY AND THE NECKLACE.

_Our petite Heroine--How she talked to the Poets--The Morocco
Case--Daisy's Eyes make Pictures--Tears, idle