"Just listen to him, Johnny!" she exclaimed, with a laugh. "Yes, 'just listen to him'--and just listen to yourself, Miss Ellin, and see which talks the most sense," he retorted. "Have you got over those dreams yet?" Ellin turned her face to him quickly. "Who told you anything about that, Aunt Hester?" Tod nodded. "It's true, you know." "Yes, it is true," she slowly said. "I have had those strange dreams for some weeks now; I have them still." "That William Brook is lost?" "That he is lost, and that we are persistently searching for him. Sometimes we are seeking for him in Timberdale, sometimes at Worcester--in America, in France, in places that I have no knowledge of. There always seems to be a sadness connected with it--a sort of latent conviction that he will never be found." "The dreams beget the dreams," said Tod, "and I should have thought you had better sense. They will soon vanish, once Sweet William makes his appearance: and mind, Miss Ellin, that you invite me to the wedding." Ellin sighed--and smiled. And just then Aunt Hester appeared attired in her crimson silk shawl with the fancy border, and the primrose feather in her Leghorn bonnet. A day or two went on, bringing no news of the traveller. On the nineteenth of October--I shall never forget the date--Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley and ourselves set off in the large open phaeton for a place called Pigeon Green, to spend the day with some friends living there. On this same morning, as it chanced, a very wintry one, Mr. St. George started for Worcester in his gig, accompanied by Ellin Delorane. But of this we knew nothing. He had business in the town; she was going to spend a few days with Mary West, formerly Mary Coney. Ellin was well wrapped up, and Mr. St. George, ever solicitous for her comfort, kept the warm fur rug well about her during the journey: the skies looked grey and threatening, the wind was high and bitterly cold. Worcester reached, he drove straight through the town, left Ellin at Mrs. West's door, in the Foregate Street, and then drove back to the Hare and Hounds Inn to put up his horse and gig. II. I shall always say, always think, it was a curious thing we chanced to go that day, of all days, to Pigeon Green. It is not chance that brings about these strange coincidences. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."