"Well!--and aren't dreams the hardest things to recollect there are? Look at the Prophet Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar." Mr. Pelly thought to himself that he would much sooner look at the speaker. But he only said, "Suppose we do!" To which the reply was, "Well, then--of course!..." "Of course what?" "Why--of course when you can recollect things that proves they're not dreams." "Then, when Daniel recollected--or, I should rather say, recalled his dream to Nebuchadnezzar--did that prove that it wasn't a dream?" "Certainly not, because he was a Prophet. The Chaldeans _couldn't_ recollect, and that proved that it was." The Baronet and his Lady remained superiorly silent, smiling over the heads of the discussion. The attitude of Debrett towards human weaknesses--such as Philosophical Speculation, or the Use of the Globes--was indicated. When Mr. Pelly had finished reading his account of the dream--on which our relation of it, already given, was founded--discussion ensued. It embodied, intelligently enough, all the things that it is dutiful to say when we are disconcerted at the inscrutable. The Baronet said we must guard ourselves carefully against being carried away by two or three things; superstition was one of them. It did not require a Scientific Eye to see that there was nothing in this narrative which might not be easily ascribed to the subconscious action of Mr. Pelly's brain. It was quite otherwise in such a case as that of his great-aunt, Dorothea, whose wraith undoubtedly appeared and took refreshment at Knaresborough Copping at the very time that she was confined of twins here in this house. The testimony to the truth of this had never been challenged. But when people came and told him stories of substantial tables floating in the air and accordions being played, he always asked this one question, "Was it in the dark?" That question always proved a poser, etc., etc.--and so forth. From which it will be seen that Sir Stopleigh belonged to that numerous class of persons which, when its attention turns towards wondermongering of any sort, loses its heads promptly, and runs through the nearest available gamut of accepted phrases. Her ladyship said she was not the least surprised at anything happening in a dream. She herself dreamed only the other night that Lady Pirbright had gone up in a balloon shaped like a gridiron, and the very next day came the news that old Canon Pirbright, at Trenchards Plaistowe, had had a paralytic stroke. It was impossible to account for these things. The only wonder to her was that Mr. Pelly should have recollected the whole so plainly, and been able to write it down. She would give anything to recollect that dream about the Circulating Library and the potted shrimps. Her ladyship discoursed for some time about her own dreams.