It was certainly a singular dream, well worthy of being recorded. Taken in conjunction with its notable working out, few dreams have been so remarkable. At least, if it may be deemed that subsequent events did work it out. The reader must judge. Mr. and Mrs. Lake retired to rest as usual, eating no supper. When they had fish or meat with tea, supper was not served. On this evening he drank some wine-and-water before going to bed; she touched nothing. Therefore it cannot be thought she suffered from nightmare. It was a singular dream; let me repeat the assertion. And it was in the earlier part of the night that it visited her. How soon after she went to sleep, how late, there were no means of knowing. Part of the evening's doings came to her again in her sleep. She thought that Mrs. Chester called, went on to the Jupps' house, returned to drink tea, and gave the invitation to go to her house at Guild on the Sunday--all just as it had been in reality. Clara also thought that she felt an insuperable objection to go, in spite of having accepted the invitation. Not the vague idea that had presented itself to her awake, the half-wish that she had not made the engagement, but a strong, irrepressible conviction that the going would bring her evil--but accompanied with a conviction, a knowledge, so to say, that she should go, that it was her fate to go, and that she could not avoid it. She dreamt that Mrs. Chester had departed, and that she was discussing the point with her husband They were in a kitchen, a large kitchen quite strange to her, and were standing by a small, round, dark-coloured table in its middle. The fireplace, as Clara stood, was behind her; the window, a wide one, with an ironing board underneath it, was in front; a dresser with shelves was on her left hand; and there were several doors, leading she did not know where. Altogether, the kitchen looked large and bleak, something like those we see in farm-houses: and, seated on a chair to the right, apparently engaged in sewing, and taking no notice of them, Clara suddenly saw Mrs. Chester. She and her husband were discussing earnestly--to go, or not to go. It appeared that both felt some evil was impending, but yet both knew they _should_ go and encounter it, in spite of the hesitation: and yet Clara seemed to feel that her husband could have helped her to remain if he would. "What excuse can we make for declining?" she seemed to say to him, and then they both thought over various pleas, but none appeared to answer, and they came to the final conclusion that go they must; which they both had known throughout would be the conclusion. All the time they spoke, Mrs. Chester was sitting in her chair, listening, but taking no notice; and upon arriving at the decision Clara and her husband parted, he going towards one of the kitchen doors, she towards the window; but so sharp was the conviction that she was rushing upon evil, that she awoke.