'No, no! Betty, you misunderstand me. I know of a young lady; but--well, the truth is, I haven't met her yet--at least not in the flesh. Now, now, Betty, don't laugh at me till I explain.' 'Oh, Maister Weelum! I'll no' laugh. It strikes me it's mair a matter o' greetin'. But never mind; ca' your gird.' 'Well, Betty, to make a long story short, a few years ago I had a dream, and in that dream I saw a face and heard a voice--a woman's face and a woman's voice. I was very much impressed at the time, and that face has haunted me ever since. Among my friends I am not considered, in the generally accepted sense of the term, a woman's man. Strenuous work, facing hard matter-of-fact events, glimpses into the matrimonial tragedies of not a few lives, and the toll in time and thought which a growing business exacts have to an extent blighted the growth of the sentimentality which usually creeps into a man's heart between twenty and thirty. Somehow I have allowed matters to drift--to shape their own ends, or, as you would say, to work out their own salvation--in the full assurance, however, and with the hope strong within me, that some day the lady of my dream will come into my life, that I will again see that face and hear that voice. So far I have waited in vain; but I am not discouraged, for I feel my fate lies in my dream, and, as I say, I am waiting still.' Betty resumed her knitting, for her needles had been idle while I was speaking. 'Imphm!' she said at length; 'an' that's hoo the land lies! Fancy that noo, a great, big, wiselike man like you hankerin' after the face o' a woman ye had seen when ye were sleepin', an' a' the time withoot a doot lettin' chances slip by ye o' catchin' what ye micht ha'e gruppit. Hoots! hoots! Maister Weelum, that's surely a senseless ploy. Mair than that, I've nae brew o' dreams, although I confess that there's much in Scripture hinges on them. They were the makin' o' Joseph, a loupin'-on-stane to Daniel, an' a godsend to the prophets on mair than ae occasion. There's nae gettin' away frae it; but for a' that, as I say, I've nae brew o' them. I mind aince o' dreamin' that I was sittin' doon to my tea, an' that I was eatin' the best bit o' boiled ham that ever I tasted in a' my life; an' the next mornin'--the very next mornin', Maister Weelum--my soo dee'd. Anither time--it was on a Setterday nicht, I mind--I dreamed that the kitchen lum was on fire; an' on the Sunday mornin', when I keekit up to see that it was a' richt, a young doo tummelt doon an' nearly frichtened the life oot o' me. An' there was Peggy Rae--Mrs Wallace, ye ken--a real nice, God-fearin' woman she is, an' a regular attender o' the prayer meetin's--weel, three times in ae nicht she dreamed that an auld auntie o' hers had come hame frae Ameriky an' gi'en her the present o' three hunner pounds; an' what think ye, Maister Weelum, she wasna weel through wi' her breakfast when her mither-in-law--an auld, Godless, totterin' heathen she was--was brocht