"I do not dislike the room, Nora. "It might be for me a portico to the very gate of heaven." These words she said almost in a whisper, then louder, "Do you believe in dreams, Ernest Travers?"

"No, dear Mrs. Kennedy, I think not," he replied.

Sit down, my children, and listen to a very vivid dream I had twenty years ago, when Nora's mother was still alive, and Nora herself was a little sprightly, chattering maiden.

"I dreamt that I was dead, and laid out in a long, narrow room like this, with the bed in one corner just as it is here, that blazing chandelier, and even the curious, round dressing-table under the quaint mirror, and the vase of flowers.

Though dead, I saw it all, and thought what a cheerful, pretty room it was. Presently my coffin was brought in, and when the men who carried it were gone, my good, true-hearted Davy and Mary prepared to place me in it.

"The coffin appeared to be very handsome, but on closer survey they discovered that the inside was unfinished-no cushion for my head, no lining to cover the rough boards-nothing within but heaps of shavings, which they pulled out with trembling hands. While they sobbed and exclaimed that it was hard their mistress should be treated thus, I sat up and said to them, 'Don't grieve about that: it is of no consequence to me, for I shall have a glorious resurrection.'

"The dream was so vivid that it made a deep impression upon me, and I could not help telling it to your mother and Mary next day. Mary remembers it perfectly."

There were tears in Nora's eyes when her grandmother ceased speaking, and Mr. Travers was very grave.

"Do not look sad, my dear children," said Mrs. Kennedy, giving a hand to each. "The thought of death has nothing terrible in it for me. In the course of nature I must leave you soon. My friends and relatives are almost all gone before me. You are my last ties to this world. I am not sorrowful, dears-only a little grave.

Days went by and Nora nearly forgot the dream. Mrs. Kennedy slept well in her new room, and was as usual the sunshine and stay of the household. She insisted upon sharing her grand-daughter's housekeeping and maternal cares, and the rector's parish troubles, and smoothed them all.

Mr. Travers found everything wrong. The schools had not been visited by the curate, and were consequently very thin. The master and mistress were naturally discontented, because he had neglected to write for their salaries. The congregation had fallen

off.

"This man doesna look after the hearers," said the people in excuse, when taxed with bad attendance by their new rector. A yearly charitable fund was to be distributed, and Mr. Travers was daily besieged by poor people-Church, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic, begging for their share, and telling him exactly how much they were in the habit of receiving from the old rector. Then the poor's money-i.e., Sunday collection-was a lasting bone of contention. The paupers-Roman Catholics especially-could not be made to understand that the circumstances of the parish were changed. They had always applied to their friend the rector in any difficulty. He was the rich man (for there were no resident gentry in Lettergul), and they expected all future church clergymen to help them in the same way.

How say to them, "Ah, we rectors are not rich men any longer?" At least, how say it so as to cause the statement to be accepted and understood?

So, as the poor's money would not go far, Mr. Travers told some of the saddest tales to grannie, and she helped him from her generous purse.

Thus two busy, happy months passed by; but in the beginning of January Mrs. Kennedy's health failed. Her illness was not an attack of the dreaded asthma-merely a collapse of her vital powers. She commended her faithful old servants to Nora's particular care, and one night she departed very gently, telling her that it was not hard to die.

The rector and his wife were in their drawing-room, trying to occupy themselves, but unable to think of anything, except that very quiet figure stretched upon the bed in the opposite room. The presence of death in the house made them speak in whispers, and hush little Ernest's shrill laughter, though grannie could no longer be disturbed by it; her ears were closed to this world's sounds.

"How late and dark it is getting, and the coffin not yet come," said one to the other; "it is a pity that we arranged the funeral for so early an hour to-morrow."

And then the rector returned to his book, and Nora to the task of hushing and amusing her boy.

At length a stir was heard: heavy footsteps sounded along the passage, and presently the handle of the door was turned, and Mary looked in to say:

"It's there now, sir; but I wouldna let Davy offer to put a hand on the dear mistress till you ones was come. I tould him you'd be wishing to see

And the faithful woman, whose grief was very real, suddenly covered her face with her white apron, unable to complete her

sentence.

Mr. Travers rose, and moved to the door, followed by Nora, whom he vainly attempted to wave back.

"Nay, Ernest," she whispered, "I must go too; wait till I call Sarah to baby."

The room was ablaze with light. In compliance with a superstition common to both Protestants and Roman Catholics in Ulster, Mary had lighted every candle in the chandelier a few minutes before her mistress's death; each evening she relighted them as soon as darkness fell, and darkness came early to that room, shaded as the window was by the gaunt laurels of the shrubbery.

So a flood of soft light fell upon Mrs. Kennedy's face, with its expression of unfathomable peace-its awful, ineffable calm. A bible lay upon the dressing-table-the very bible used by the dead woman since her childhood: the departed soul had launched forth joyfully upon its mysterious voyage in dependence on the great truths therein revealed.

Mr. and Mrs. Travers and the two servants bade Mrs. Kennedy farewell with kisses and tears; and then the former drew back, that Davy and Mary might render their last service.

As they were about to place her in the coffin, they gave a cry of horror and dismay that rang through the quiet house.

"The Lord bless us an' save us!" ejaculated the old man. "Mary, woman, did ye ever see the like o' thon? Nae cushion for her head-nae lining to cover thae rough boords-nae plenishing but these!" And he drew forth handfuls of shavings, with which the badly-finished coffin was partly filled. "That I suld live to see the dear mistress misused that way-her that was reared in comfort, an' used to ha' ilka thing proper an' decent about her. That I suld live to see this day! That I suld live to see this day!" reiterated he, his high-pitched lamentation sinking into a wail.

Since Mary uttered her first cry she had remained speechless with grief, that was mingled with superstitious dread.

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Ay, Davy, the Lord save us, indeed!" came from her pale, trembling lips. "Do ye no mind her dream-the dream she dreamed twenty year syne? It's read now."

Nora and her husband looked at one another with a feeling of awe, that made them draw closer together and clasp hands tightly. In the wonder and excitement of the moment they almost expected to see Mrs. Kennedy raise herself, and hear her say, in the voice they so well knew:

"Hush! you need not grieve: it does not signify to me, for I shall have a glorious resurrection."

But her clear, gentle voice was unheard. The silence, except for the sobs of her faithful servants, continued unbroken. No glimmer of either care or pity disturbed the deep calm of her peaceful face.

Nora was the first to recover herself. She went to search for a pillow, and some lining to cover the boards, dropping quiet tears the while; and then she assisted the frightened servants to perform their last duty, speaking to them gently of the glorious resurrection, so as to calm her own fears and theirs.

In the course of years there may come other little feet, and other blithe voices, besides Ernest's, to enliven the old Glebehouse, and grannie's room may, perhaps, become a very cheerful place; but Nora will never be able to be quite as mirthful there as are her children, and Mr. Travers will never know what to answer when people ask him whether he believes in dreams or not.

Grannie's dream has made an impression upon both of them, which no after impressions will be able entirely to efface.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD.

THE vividness with which a dream is often presented to the mind on first waking from a deep sleep, is not, presumably, to be attributed, as some would have us believe, to the effects produced from a disordered digestion, but rather, we might suggest -and that, too, on mesmeric principles-that it is a mission from an unseen world.

I had dreamed a dream, and as I lay in bed in one of the hotels in Rome on a bright April morning, I felt that something of a very unusual and indescribable nature had taken possession of my mind.

The day previous I had visited the far-famed catacombs beneath the Basilica of Saint Sebastian, and had brought away with me, as a curiosity, a handful of small bones from one of the cinerary receptacles.

My conscience certainly did rather rebuke me for this unneces sary act of sacrilege, and I would gladly have forthwith retraced my steps to the church, and given up my spoil, had not the shades of evening gathered in unexpectedly, and therefore obliged me to defer it till the morrow. I had dreamed a dream that a form

beautifully yet simply arrayed in dazzling white-white as a snowdrift-appeared at my bedside. It was that of a very young girl. Her yellow hair fell in luxuriant tresses on her shoulders, and she was surrounded with a nimbus or halo of light. The figure glided up to me, and, like the ghost in the "Corsican Brothers," raised its white and attenuated hand till it rested gently on my shoulder, yet scarcely seeming to touch. Looking into my face with an expression overflowing with sadness and tenderness-"more in sorrow than in anger"-she said:

"Restore that part of me which you have so thoughtlessly taken away. See here," said she, disengaging her left hand from her robe, "my fingers are gone. Wilt not thou give back what is my own?"

I remember that I pointed to the dressing-table, and told her they were there. The vision gradually left me, and then I awoke. The sun shone brilliantly through the curtains of the window, and my very first impulse was to look and see if my angelic visitant had taken away with her to the other world the packet of bones. She had not, for there they were just as I had left them the night before. In a few hours after this I was on my way to the church of Saint Sebastian, distant two miles from the city. The morning was a most lovely one. The flowers, which everywhere studded the pretty gardens, smelt deliciously in the fresh morning air, as I passed by vine-yards, olive-yards, and picturesque villas of the Roman citizens.

Skirting along the extensive and precipitous ruins of the Palatine Hill-truly regal in their dreary desolation — after brisk walking I reached the little church of Domine quo vadis.

Resting here awhile, not only to seek shelter from the sun's powerful rays, but also to examine the church itself, and meditate on the interesting legend in connexion with it, I passed half an hour very pleasantly, after which I pursued my way. A long train of uncouth buffaloes, with their jingling bells, wended their lazy way along the Appian-road, and raised so great a cloud of dust that I gladly escaped the inconvenience by climbing a wall, and so proceeding over some deserted fields till I reached Saint Sebastian.

I paused awhile to look back on the view of Rome. Rome! thou that art so full of interest to the northern traveller. Who can gaze on that scene of grandeur and desolation-majestic in its solitude without longing for the time when the enslaving bonds of religious and political tyranny will drop off from this injured country, and the knowledge of the only one and true God, in all its purity and truth, will be as widely spread as the waters cover the sea? Looking in another direction, the stately