“This dream left on my mother’s mind a fearful apprehension of impending misfortune, ‘which would not pass away.’ It was _murder_ she feared; and her suspicions were not allayed by the discovery that a man (some time before discarded by my father for bad conduct, and with whom she had, somehow, associated the _Death_ of her dream) had been lurking about the place, and sleeping in an adjoining outhouse on the night it occurred, and for some nights previous and subsequent to it. Her terror increased. Sleep forsook her; and every night, when the house was still, she arose and stole, sometimes with a candle, sometimes in the dark, from room to room, listening, in a sort of waking nightmare, for the breathing of the assassin, who, she imagined, was lurking in some one of them. This could not last. She reasoned with herself; but her terror became intolerable, and she related her dream to my father, who, of course, called her a fool for her pains, whatever might be his real opinion of the matter. “Three months had elapsed, when we children were all of us seized with scarlet fever. My sister Catherine died almost immediately—sacrificed, as my mother in her misery thought, to her (my mother’s) over-anxiety for Alexes, whose danger seemed more imminent. The dream-prophecy was in part fulfilled. I also was at death’s door—given up by the doctors, but not by my mother: she was confident of my recovery; but for my brother, who was scarcely considered in danger at all, but on whose head _she had seen_ the visionary axe impending, her fears were great; for she could not recollect whether the blow had or had not descended when the spectre vanished. My brother recovered, but relapsed, and barely escaped with life; but Alexes did not. For a year and ten months the poor child lingered, and almost every night I had to sing her asleep—often, I remember, through bitter tears, for I knew she was dying, and I loved her the more as she wasted away. I held her little hand as she died; I followed her to the grave—the last thing that I have _loved_ on earth. And _the dream was fulfilled_. “Truly and sincerely yours, J. NOEL PATON.” The dreaming of coffins and funerals, when a death is impending, must be considered as examples of this allegorical language. Instances of this kind are extremely numerous. Not unfrequently the dreamer, as in cases of second-sight, sees either the body in the coffin, so as to be conscious of who is to die, or else is made aware of it from seeing the funeral-procession at a certain house, or from some other significant circumstance. This faculty, which has been supposed to belong peculiarly to the highlanders of Scotland, appears to be fully as well known in Wales and on the continent, especially in Germany.