This dream had happened to her so many times, and was so vivid and circumstantial--the fire seemed to glow in the thatch--that at last she began to dread lest it should come true. If it did not come true of the house itself, perhaps it would of the family, and of their affairs; perhaps it signified that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune would burn them, as it were, to the ground. She tried to think whether in the dream they were getting the fire under before she woke, or whether they could not master it; it seemed dubious. She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid lest it might excite her again; nor could she tell Iden, who would have laughed at her. Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and dreams have ceased to come true, she did not like it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable danger was threatening round about. As she sat at the table she added to her prayer the supplication that the dear old house might not be burned down. Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on the lower flight paused, to listen to voices--not those of her mother and Iden--creditors, doubtless, come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"--the very sum and total of religion. Her heart beat quicker--the voices came again, and she thought she recognized them, and that they were not those of creditors. She entered the sitting-room, and found that two visitors, from widely separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau, the other with an old, many-coloured carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from Iden Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they were called, and Alere Flamma, from London; the Flammas were carpet-bag people. Her father was making them very welcome, after his wont, and they were talking of the house the Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot, expressly in order that they might drink, drink, drink undisturbed by their unreasonable wives. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XXVI. THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma, with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of May; till "a month passed away," and still they were talking. For there is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better than sleep, like love itself--for love is agreement of thought--"God listens to those who pray to him; let us eat and drink, and think of nothing," says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and drank--very moderate the drinking--and thought of nothing, and talked, which should be added to complete felicity. Not, of course, all of them always together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere, Amadis, and Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.