This cry, or rather yell, reached my ears as I sate reading in the parlour by myself, and fearing I knew not what, I rushed to the apartment; before I reached it, the sound had subsided into low but violent sobbing; and, just as I arrived at the threshold I heard, close at my feet, a fierce protracted growl, and something rubbing along the surbase. I was in the dark, but, with a feeling of mingled terror and fury, I stamped and struck at the abhorred brute with my feet, but in vain. The next moment I was in the room, and heard little Fanny, through her sobs, cry-- "Oh, poor baby is killed--that wicked man has killed him--he uncovered his face, and put it on him, and lay upon the bed and killed poor baby. I knew he came to kill him. Ah, papa, papa, why did you not come up before he went?--he is gone, he went away as soon as he killed our poor little darling baby." I could not conceal my agitation, quite, and I said to my wife-- "Has he, Smith, been here?" "No." "What is it, then?" "The child has seen _some_ one." "Seen whom? Who? Who has been here?" "I did not see it; but--but I am sure the child saw--that is, _thought_ she saw _him_;--the person you have named. Oh, God, in mercy deliver us! What shall I do--what shall I do!" Thus saying, the dear little woman burst into tears, and crying, as if her heart would break, sobbed out an entreaty that I would look at baby; adding, that she herself had not courage to see whether her darling was sleeping or dead. "Dead!" I exclaimed. "Tut, tut, my darling; you must not give way to such morbid fancies--he is very well, I see him breathing;" and so saying, I went over to the bed where our little boy was lying. He was slumbering; though it seemed to me very heavily, and his cheeks were flushed. "Sleeping tranquilly, my darling--tranquilly, and deeply; and with a warm colour in his cheeks," I said, rearranging the coverlet, and retiring to my wife, who sate almost breathless whilst I was looking at our little boy. "Thank God--thank God," she said quietly; and she wept again; and rising, came to his bedside. "Yes, yes--alive; thank God; but it seems to me he is breathing very short, and with difficulty, and he looks--_does_ he not look hot and feverish? Yes, he _is_ very hot; feel his little hand--feel his neck; merciful heaven! he is burning." It was, indeed, very true, that his skin was unnaturally dry and hot; his little pulse, too, was going at a fearful rate. "I do think," said I--resolved to conceal the extent of my own apprehensions--"I do think that he is just a _little_ feverish; but he has often been much more so; and will, I dare say, in the morning, be perfectly well again. I dare say, but for little Fanny's _dream_, we should not have observed it at all."