uddenly he burst out in a rapturous
but guarded voice--

"I see it all, I see it all! Now God be thanked, I am indeed awake at
last! Come, joy! vanish, sorrow! Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off your straw and
hie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your unbelieving ears the
wildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of night did conjure up to
astonish the soul of man withal! . . . Ho, Nan, I say! Bet!"

A dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said--

"Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?"

"Commands? . . . O, woe is me, I know thy voice! Speak thou--who am I?"

"Thou? In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales; to-day art
thou my most gracious liege, Edward, King of England."

Tom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively--

"Alack, it was no dream! Go to thy rest, sweet sir--leave me to my
sorrows."

Tom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream. He thought
it was summer, and he was playing, all alone, in the fair meadow called
Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high, with long red whiskers
and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly and said, "Dig by that
stump." He did so, and found twelve bright new pennies--wonderful
riches! Yet this was not the best of it; for the dwarf said--

"I know thee. Thou art a good lad, and a deserving; thy distresses shall
end, for the day of thy reward is come. Dig here every seventh day, and
thou shalt find always the same treasure, twelve bright new pennies.
Tell none--keep the secret."

Then the dwarf vanished, and Tom flew to Offal Court with his prize,
saying to himself, "Every night will I give my father a penny; he will
think I begged it, it will glad his heart, and I shall no more be beaten.
One penny every week the good priest that teacheth me shall have; mother,
Nan, and Bet the other four. We be done with hunger and rags, now, done
with fears and frets and savage usage."

In his dream he reached his sordid home all out of breath, but with eyes
dancing with grateful enthusiasm; cast four of his pennies into his
mother's lap and cried out--

"They are for thee!--all of them, every one!--for thee and Nan and Bet
--and honestly come by, not begged nor stolen!"

The happy and astonished mother strained him to her breast and exclaimed--

"It waxeth late--may it please your Majesty to rise?"

Ah! that was not the answer he was expecting. The dream had snapped
asunder--he was awake.

He opened his eyes--the