He turned back from the window shutters without opening them and sat on the edge of his bed. He could not shake off his dream. How could it possibly be true that there was no such forest as he had wandered into in his dream--that Kentucky wilderness of the old heroic days? Could anything destroy in him the certainty that with wildly beating heart he had seen the living colours and heard the actual notes and watched the characteristic movements of the warbler? Then, though these things were not real, still they were true and would remain true always. Thus, often and to many of us, between closing the curtains of the eyes upon the outer world at night and drawing them wide in the morning, within that closed theatre a stage has been erected and we have stepped forth and spoken some solitary part or played a rôle in a drama that leaves us changed for the rest of our days. Yesterday an old self, today a new self. We have been shifted completely away from our last foot-prints and our steps move off in another direction, taking a truer course. Beyond all else a high, solemn sense subdued Webster with the thought, that in his sleep he had come near as to unearthly things. The long-dead hunter, who had appeared to him, spoke as though he lived elsewhere than on the earth and lived more nobly; his accents, the majesty of his countenance, were moulded as by higher wisdom and goodness. Webster was overwhelmed with the feeling that he had been brought near the mystery of life and death and as from an immortal spirit had received his consecration to the forest. ... He got down on his knees at his bedside, after a while, though little used to prayer.... When he walked into the breakfast-room with a fresh step and freshened countenance, probably all were not slow to notice the change. Families whose lives run along the groove of familiar routine quickly observe the slightest departure from the customary, whether in voice or behaviour, of any member. There was response soon after his entrance to something in him obviously unusual. "My son," said his father, who had laid down his paper to help him to the slice which had been put aside, "the woods must agree with you"; and he even scraped the dish for a little extra gravy. Ordinarily, when deeply interested in his paper or occasionally when conscious of some disappointment as to his son, he forgot, or was indifferent about, the gravy. "They do agree with me!" Webster replied, laughing and in fresh tones. He held out his plate hungrily for his slice and he waited for all the gravy that might be coming to him. "One of the boys has already been here this morning," said his mother, handing him his cup. "They want you to be sure to meet them this afternoon, not to fail. You must have been dead asleep, for I called you at three different times." "Did you knock three times?"