"Yes, of course I was; but such a lovely dream, Joan! You see, men who paint pictures and love what is beautiful and dream about beautiful things and beautiful people see all sorts of visions sometimes. I have pictures in my head a thousand times more splendid than any I shall ever put upon canvas, because mere paint-brushes cannot do much, even when they are in the cleverest hands; but a man's brain is not bound down by material, mechanical matters. My brain made a picture of you last night--a picture that came and looked at me on my fern bed--a picture so real, so alive that I could see it move and hear it laugh. You think that wonderful. It isn't really, because my brain has done nothing but think of you now for nearly six weeks. My eye studies you and stamps you upon my brain; then, when night comes, and no man works, and the world is dark and silent, my brain sets off on its own account and raises up a magic vision just to show me what you really are--how different to this poor daub here." "Lard, Mister Jan! I never heard tell of sich a coorious thing as that." "And the pretty dream-Joan can talk almost as well as you can! Why, last night, while I was half awake and half asleep, she put her hand upon my shoulder and said kind things, but I dared not move or kiss her hand at first for fear she would vanish if I did." Joan laughed. "That is a funny story, sure 'nough," she said. "I 'specs 'twas awnly another fairy body, arter all." "No, it wasn't. She had your voice and your spirit in her; and that picture which my brain painted for me was so much better than the thing my hand has painted that, in the morning, I was almost tempted to destroy this altogether. But I didn't." "An' what did this here misty sort o' maid say to 'e?" "Strange things, strange things. Things I would give a great deal to hear you say. It seemed that you had come, Joan, it seemed that you had purposely come from your little cottage on the cliff through the darkness before dawn. Why? To share my loneliness, to brighten my poor shadowy life. Dreams are funny things, are they not? What d'you think you said?" "Sure I dunnaw." "Why, you said that you were not going to leave me any more; that you believed in me and that you had come to me because it was bad for a man to live all alone in the world. You said that you felt alone too--without me. And it made me feel happy to hear you say that, though I knew, all the time, that it was not the real beautiful Joan who spoke to me." Thereupon the girl asked a question which seemed to argue some sharpening of intelligence within her. "An' when I spoke that, what did you say, Mister Jan?" "I didn't say anything at all. I just took that sweet Joan-of-dreams into my arms and kissed her."