"But mind, Marmaduke, you must now make haste and get well, and not give way to despondency about yourself. I am going for the doctor, who is sleeping in the house, and whom I promised to call as soon as you awoke; and, Peter, don't you let him talk too much. For a boy like that to talk of death," added Mr. Long, aloud, as he drew on his slippers, "is to go half-way to meet it." Marmaduke smiled feebly at this remark of his unconscious tutor's, and when he had left the room, observed, "There is no need of any doctors; this is my death-bed, Meredith, I know." "Marmaduke," replied I, gravely, "I will not listen to such dreadful things; it is wrong, it is wicked, it will do you harm." "No, Peter, there is nothing dreadful in the thing I mean, and it seems to soothe me when I speak of it. Since I have been ill, I have had a sign that tells me I must go. We shall not grow up together to be friends through life, as we had planned. I shall watch you perhaps--I hope I shall--and be happy in your happiness, but you will soon forget <i>me</i>. There will be a thousand things for you to think of; there have been such even now for you while <i>I</i>--it seems hard, does it not, Peter, that I should have grown up under the shadow of that man, and never felt the Sunshine? They say that boyhood is the blithest time of life, but I have never been a boy. I think I could almost tell him, if he stood here now, how he has poisoned my young life, and sent me to the grave without one pleasant memory to moisten my dying eyes. Yes, my friend, dying. I have seen a vision in the night far too sweet and fear not to have been sent from heaven itself. If there indeed be angels, such was she. They say the Heaths have always ghastly warnings when their hour is come, but this was surely a gentle messenger. I close my eyes and see that smile once more." "Has she hair of golden brown?" inquired I, gravely, "and hazel eyes, large and pitiful, and does she smile sad and sweet as though one's pain would soon be over?" "That is she, that is she," exclaimed Marmaduke, eagerly, while from his heavy eyelids the light flashed forth as from a thunder-cloud; "oh, tell me who and what she is!" "Her name is Lucy Gerard," replied I, quietly, "and we are, at this moment, in her father's house." Marmaduke's mention of her smile had revealed to me the secret alike of dream and vision. He must have been dimly conscious of the catastrophe that had occurred to him throughout, although he had confused himself, poor fellow, with Mazeppa, and the daughter of our host with a vision from the skies. His eyes were now closed, and with features as pale as the pillow on which he lay, he was repeating to himself her name as though it were a prayer. "Marmaduke," said I, "we will talk no more, since it exhausts you thus; I hear Mr. Long returning with the doctor, be of good heart, and keep your thoughts from dwelling--"