I was sound asleep, though the noise of the storm was actually deafening, when Lizzy again tapped at my door, and at last, opening it slightly, pushed a lighted candle inside, and disappeared. If there be a dreary thing in life, it is to get up before day of a dark, raw morning, in a room destitute of all comfort and convenience, and proceed to wash and dress in cold, gloom, and misery, with the consciousness that what you are about to do not only might be safer and better undone, but may, and not at all improbably will, turn out the rashest act of your life. Over and over I said to myself, “If I were to tell her that I have a foreboding,--a distinct foreboding of calamity; that I dreamed a dream, and saw myself on a raft, while waves, mountain high, rose above me, and depths yawned beneath,--dark, fathomless, and terrible,--would she mind it?” I declare, on my sacred word of honor,--I declare I think she'd laugh at me! “Are you ready?” whispered a soft voice at the door; and I saw at once my doom was pronounced. Noiselessly, stealthily, we crept down the stairs, and, crossing the little flagged kitchen, undid the heavy bars of the door. Shall I own that a thought of treason shot through me as I stood with the great bolt in my hands, and the idea flashed across me, “What if I were to let it fall with a crash, and awake the household?” Did she divine what was passing in my head, as she silently took the bar from me, and put it away? We were now in the open air, breasting a swooping nor'-wester that chilled the very marrow of my bones. She led the way through the dark night as though it were noonday, and I followed, tumbling over stones and rocks and tufts of heather, and falling into holes, and scrambling out again like one drunk. I could hear her laughing at me too,--she who so seldom laughed; and it was with difficulty she could muster gravity enough to say she hoped I had not hurt myself.