Sharp, as the cook called herself, was taciturn and peculiar, yet respectful to the doctor and his wife. One day Mrs. Wendon was ill. Nepenthe wished with her own hands to make some oat-meal gruel. Mrs. Sharp turned as she saw her standing by the range stirring the meal, and looked at her with a fierce look, saying something in an undertone about her not being mistress of the houseshe worked in a kitchen once. Nepenthe was timid, and was really afraid of this harsh woman, who seemed to have taken a strange dislike to her. She breathed more freely as she went up stairs again, glad to escape from the region where the new cook reigned. She said nothing to the doctor about the cook's strange manner-he might be angry and scold and send the woman away, she might seek some revenge, she evidently had a great dislike to her-it was best not to trouble the doctor with these little annoyances, it would end soon, when the old cook came back. Nepenthe, though young, acted with remarkable prudence. She had learned patience and consideration at her mother's sick bed. That mother's patient endurance of suffering had made an indelible impression upon her, and given a cast and tone to the whole of her future life. As in every house, there are days when everything seems to go wrong the bread will burn, the milk sour, the fire go out, or the cake be heavy-so at Mrs. Wendon's things went wrong the whole week, as if an evil genius presided over the establishment. As the doctor drew up his face when he tasted the muddy coffee one morning, It takes a week for a new girl to get used to a strange house," said Mrs. Wendon, apologetically, "and my not having been about has made it harder for her," but yet that night she wrote a letter to a friend of hers, a young housekeeper like herself, and pathetically described her troubles. We make this extract from the letter, though she will hardly justify us in publishing one of her letters: "I left the care of the lower regions yesterday to bells and speaking tubes, till a peculiar odor ascending into the upper regions, prompted my speedy descent about noon. I found my new tea kettle high and dry on the red hot range, the potatoes roasting in the bottom of the pot, whence issued clouds of angry gas, hissing and sissing. Bridget was in the yard talking with Bridget next door. My new keeler, for which I paid so many second hand clothes last week, had been hastily washed and put on the range to dry clean. Bridget says she always generally' fills the kettle full of water, and as for the keeler, she only just put it there. One of my new goblets lay on the table in sundry fragments-that, she said, had been broken this long time -though I am quite sure it was on the breakfast table in a good state of preservation. The elegant glass pitcher given me by mother when I was first married had been left out on the stone steps for the milk man to fill. When filled, some wandering tabby in taking a drink had upset it, and the handle was broken. In the centre of the bottom of the keeler was a suspicious-looking dark spot, which will probably soon need a tuft of rags to fill an incipient perforation, and the next week she'll be coming and saying with a bland smile, 'If you plase, ma'am, will you be so good as to get a new keeler, for it lakes. Sure it was very poor tin; folks says them old clothes women allays generally gives poor tin, ma'am, and we want a new tub, too.' Sure enough, the tub had split its sides for want of hoops, and lost its foundation for want of water. I can't make Bridget understand that a tub is an aquatic animal, and must have water. The tub lies in the cellar, its different sides hopelessly severed, for two of them had been burned that morning for kindling-it was so convanient '-now we have the tubs set, I suppose we won't have that trouble. The clothes are all washed and ironed, but not thoroughly aired, and she has put them on the beds damp. Nepenthe has taken a violent cold, which resulted in a violent attack of influenza." It We take this little account from something she wrote herself long afterwards. Says Nepenthe: "I lay wrapped in a pile of bed clothes one night, as I thought, fast asleep. was about midnight when I was certain my door opened, and some one walked softly in, and yet I thought I was dreaming. Nearer she came to the bed-there was a bowl of flax-seed tea on a little table by the bed, and lemons cut up in it. I heard the rustling of a paper, as if the tea was slightly stirred, and yet I dared not open my eyes. Spell bound I lay, almost afraid to breathe. I thought I was in a horrid nightmare. I could neither scream nor stir. I knew I heard the click of a spoon in the bowl of tea. I moved as I felt a handkerchief over my face and some strong odor almost choking me. A dog barked under my window-I never heard a dog near the house at night before. I started, and I know some one stole hurriedly out. It was a cloudy night, but the moon looked out suddenly from the clouds and shone full through the open shutter on my bed. I could just see through the crack of the open door a kind of dark shadow moving along through the hall. The shadow was taller than Mrs. Wendon. It was not a man-I have a sure feeling it was not. The clock in the hall struck the hour of twelve. It had never been wound up to strike since I came to Dr. Wendon's. I had never heard it strike before. I know not how it happened to strike that night. By some strange phenomenon of dreams, the bark of the dog may have awaked me and caused the dream. I have since thought it might have been an optical illusion, but yet I can still hear, when I lie awake at night and think of it, the rustling of that paper-the click of that spoon. "I have a vague remembrance as if the shadow had the cook's long black hair. When I think of ghosts I think of her. She might have come in to see how I was sleeping, to taste of the tea, to sweeten it, to see if I were really ill-but it would be very strange and unusual for her to show any interest in me. I threw away the tea the next morning. The cook left the next day-did she not like my awaking or did she not know it? When, and why, and wherefore, was that mysterious visitant? Since that night, I sleep with my door locked, and I always shiver when I hear a dog bark at midnight. It was not a dream-I am sure it was not for the next morning there was a little piece of white paper, which had been folded like a paper for powder, by the bowl on the table. There was nothing in it. I threw it into the fire. This dream, vision, apparition-whatever it was-I never told. We have impressions, foolish yet fixed -we may be in false or real danger, but the wisest and strongest have often a little superstition. Then nature has a dread of the supernatural, and I would walk miles to get out of the way of that cook, never to see her more. I would rather such an eye as hers would never rest on my face. I looked out of my bed-room through the half-closed shutters the next morning as I saw her walking off rapidly, and I felt really glad that I should see her no more.' For weeks while Nepenthe slept in that room, night after night in succession she was visited by this same figure walking through the room at midnight. Some would ascribe this to supernatural causes, or to the activity of the imagination. A scientific physician has said this kind of spectral illusion is always the renewal of actual impressions made on the sensorium. It is, he says, a peculiar disease of the internal optical apparatus, the effect of which is to produce a repetition or an imitation of former impressions. CHAPTER XII. DR. WENDON'S DREAM. "One of those passing, rainbow dreams; In trance or slumber round the soul." "We can dream more in a minute than we can act in a day RANT. "IT is foolish to talk of dreams," said Dr. Wendon, one morning, when Nepenthe had been with them some time, "but I had a dream last night, and as I dreamed it the night before, too, it made so vivid an impresssion I could hardly convince myself when I first awoke that it was nothing but a dream. It was as if I had seen a panoramic painting unrolled before me. I thought I sat on a lonely rock by the ocean, and above me were radiant clouds. It seemed early in the morning-before sunrise. Suddenly the clouds over my head parted, and a glorious form with shining wings descended, approached me, and gave me a half-open bud with snowy petals edged with ruby. As he handed me the bud, a delicious fragrance perfumed the air about me. Take this,' said the angel, watch it carefully till it blooms: years shall pass, it will be planted in another's garden, when rough winds will blow upon it, but it will become more beautiful and fragrant than ever.' I turned suddenly, and standing almost close to me by the He reached forth I shivered with fright, I thought if I could keep my flower, but Suddenly the whole I could hear the rock was a form, all black-not black like a negro, but black as charcoal. He had in his hand, a huge ball of fire; he looked so ugly I thought he must be the devil. I looked down, and I could see one cloven foot. to take the flower from my hand. and tried to utter the name of Christ. only utter the name of Christ I could some night-mare spell seemed on me. sky was black. I could see nothing. waves dashing against the rock, and a great storm coming on. It seemed dark for a long, long time ;-my flower was gone. Then the scene changed. I was in Italy—there were groves, and fountains, and vines, and such a clear sapphire sky; I sat by a fountain; I could feel the cool winds on my face. I looked up, the angel was by my side again: The flower you reared is fresh and beautiful,' said he, and some one will pay a great price for it.' Again the scene changed. I was in my own land once more; I walked by an artist's studio; I looked up at the window and there was my flower in a golden vase, more beautiful than ever. "The dream is no sphinx, no poetic myth, no mystery or riddle I cannot solve. Some little Daniel walking about my heart tells my kingly reason that the dream and interpretation are one. I will not waste my time or puzzle my brains with settling the question whether coming events ever do cast their shadows before them on the shore of dreamland; whether real deeds and words are ever thus foreshadowed. I did have the dream ; but it is the first dream I ever had that I repeated to any one, and it made a vivid impression. My dream seemed to think, and feel, and imagine, and reason all at once. It is photographed on my soul, and who shall dare to say that the picture may not be reproduced hereafter on life's unfolding canvass. Dreams are only the chaos of our thoughts, but out of the world's first chaos came living light, and solid land. Out of the ark of sleep, dreams may glide over the future, and, like the dove, bring back olive-leaf tokens of subsiding billows and cleared up skies, bidding the heart safely go forth on life's rainbow spanned pilgrimage. Nepenthe is my flower, and who knows some one yet may pay a great price for her, if now she is carefully culti |