"An' he said he'd rather pull my tooth than a lion's tooth?" "Of course I'll tell him." "Miss Philly, shall I dream of my tooth, do you suppose?" Philippa laughed and said she didn't know. "I hope I will; it means something nice. I forget what, now." "Dreams don't mean anything, Mary." "Oh yes, they do!" the child assured her, skipping along with one arm round the girl's slender waist. "Mrs. Semple has a dream-book, and she reads it to me every day, an' she reads me what my dreams mean. Sometimes I haven't any dreams," Mary admitted, regretfully, "but she reads all the same. Did you ever dream about a black ox walking on its back legs? I never did. I don't want to. It means trouble." "Goosey!" said Miss Philippa. "If you dream of the moon," Mary went on, happily, "it means you are going to have a beau who'll love you." "Little girls mustn't talk about love," Philippa said, gravely; but the color came suddenly into her face. To dream of the moon means--Why! but only the night before she had dreamed that she had been walking in the fields and had seen the moon rise over shocks of corn that stood against the sky like the plumed heads of Indian warriors! "Such things are foolish, Mary," Miss Philly said, her cheeks very pink. And while Mary chattered on about Mrs. Semple's book Philippa was silent, remembering how yellow the great flat disk of the moon had been in her dream; how it pushed up from behind the black edge of the world, and how, suddenly, the misty stubble-field was flooded with its strange light:--"you are going to have a beau!" Philippa wished she might see the book, just to know what sort of things were read to Mary. "It isn't right to read them to the child," she thought; "it's a foolish book, Mary," she said, aloud. "I never saw such a book." "I'll bring it the next time I come," Mary promised. "Oh no, no," Philly said, a little breathlessly; "it's a wrong book. I couldn't read such a book, except--except to tell you how foolish and wrong it is." Mary was not concerned with her friend's reasons; but she remembered to bring the ragged old book with her the very next time her brother dropped her at Mr. Roberts's gate to spend an hour with Miss Philippa. There had to be a few formal words between the preacher and the sinner before Mary had entire possession of her playmate, but when her brother drove away, promising to call for her later in the afternoon, she became so engrossed in the important task of picking hollyhock seeds that she quite forgot the dream-book. The air was hazy with autumn, and full of the scent of fallen leaves and dew-drenched grass and of the fresh tan-bark on the garden paths. On the other side of the road was a corn-field, where the corn stood in great shocks. Philly looked over at it, and drew a quick breath,--her dream! "Did you bring that foolish book?" she said.