eter, more composed?"

"Oh, yes," he answered; "you don't suppose that I am ignorant that you
have been drugging me?" he said, casting at me a look of reproach.

"Drugging you?" I exclaimed.

"Yes; did you think I couldn't taste that stuff that you got my parents
to give me through all its disguise? Do you think I did not feel its
influence?"

"A salutary influence only, I hope," I answered, being forced at length
to admit the stratagem that I had felt it my duty to adopt.

"What you would call a salutary influence," he retorted. "But do you
know," he added, almost fiercely, "that you have robbed me of those
dreams that constituted the better part of my life? In fact, my _real_,
my _only_ life."

"I am sorry for that," I remarked. "Do you then not dream at all now?"

"If I dream, I do _but_ dream--like all ordinary mortals, but my second
existence is closed, I fear, for ever. I will tell you what I dreamt
last night. I walked towards the entrance of a beautiful garden where I
had often been in the habit of meeting Edith, and I found the gate
closed. I shook it, and tried to open it by main force, when I noticed
something written over the gate. I read these words, 'This is the abode
of spirits untrammelled by the flesh.'

"I did not know other than that I was as much in the spirit as on any of
the preceding nights, so I tried the gate again, only to meet with the
same success; but this time I heard a voice calling out, 'Thy flesh hath
grown upon thy spirit--the doors of thy soul are closed--hence! back to
earth!' I made one more desperate effort, and called out, 'Edith!
Edith!' but my voice went forth from me weak, like a voice in the
distance. Nevertheless, my cry was answered. I heard Edith's voice
within the garden calling out my name, but in very feeble tones. My ears
were too grossly clogged with flesh to hear distinctly spiritual
sounds. I was aware of Edith's presence. She shook the garden gate with
her hands and spoke to me through the bars, but I saw no form. I heard
only her voice.

"'Come to me,' she said, in what appeared a suppressed whisper. 'Oh,
what is this, Charles? Why cannot you come?'

"Then the same unknown voice that had addressed me before spoke again,
'Spirit to spirit--flesh to flesh!' and I felt myself whirled back from
the garden gate as by a whirlwind, and I awoke."

"The dream is strange," I observed. "Have you many such dreams?" I
asked.

"Up to the present time, thank goodnes