enjoy what I enjoyed as I lay, then and for some time afterwards, in my white and healthful bed. It was a foretaste of heaven. So fearful was I that the slightest movement might destroy the lovely pictures that I did not even turn my head at the sound of my bedroom door being softly opened and closed. A light footstep approached the bed, and I beheld a young girl whose form and face I silently and worshipfully greeted as the fairest vision of womanhood in her spring that ever blessed the sight of man. Observing that my eyes were open, she gazed at me for a moment of two in wondering and glad surprise, and then, with her finger at her smiling lips, trod softly from the room as lightly as she had entered it. I closed my eyes, so that this fair picture, in its dress of pale blue, with lace about the neck and arms, might not be entirely lost to me, and when another sound in the room caused me to open them, in the hope that she had returned, I saw standing at my bedside a grave and kindly man. "So," he said in a quiet tone, "you are at length in the land of conscious life. You remember me?" "First enlighten me," I said, and I was surprised to hear my voice so weak and wavering. "I am really awake? I am really in the land of the living?" "So far as we know," was his reply. "There are those who say this life is but a dream, and that when we yield up our breath it is simply that our dream is ended, and that we are awaking to reality. For myself, I have not the least doubt that life is life, and death death, and that pain and joy are just what those words are intended to convey to our understanding." "So fair and peaceful is the scene before me," I said, "so calm was my soul when I awoke, that it is difficult to realise that I am in the land of the living." "You will realise it very vividly," he said gaily, "in an hour or two, when you are hungry. There is nothing so convincing as our grosser passions. You have not answered my question. Do you remember me?" "Yes, I remember you. I had sprained my ankle in crossing the stream that runs through the woods, and not being able to walk, was doomed to lie there all night with a fine storm playing pranks upon my helpless body. It was a wild night, and I had wild fancies. What would have become of me had you not providentially come to my assistance is easy enough to guess. I should really by this time have been in possession of the grand secret." "When did this occur?" "Yesterday." "My friend," said Doctor Louis, with a light laugh, "what you have so faithfully described took place four weeks ago. If you have any doubt of it, you have only to pass your hand over your beard."