I shook it, went on slowly shaking it, I liked the motion, turning from side to side on the pillow, continuing it. Ella, frightened, begged me to leave off, summoned nurse, who took my cheeks gently between her hands. That did not stop it, at least I recollect being angry at the slight compulsion and making up my mind, my poor lost feeble mind that I should do what I liked, that I would never leave off moving my head from side to side. That night I dreamed of water, great masses of black water, heaving; too deep for sound or foam. Upon them I was borne backwards and forwards until I turned giddy and sick, very cold. The Gates of Silence were beyond, but I was too weak to get there, the bar was between us. I saw the Gates, but could not reach them. The waters were cold and ever rising. Sometimes, submerged, my lips tasted their dank saltness and I knew that my strength was all spent. Soon I should sink deeper. I wished it was over. Then One came, when I was past help, or hope, drowning in the dark waters, and said: “Now I will take you with me.” We were going rapidly through air currents, soft warm air-currents and amazing space, a swift journey, over plains and mountains. At last to the North, and there I saw snow-mountains and at the foot the cold sea, frozen and blue, heaving slowly. Swimming in that slow frozen sea, I saw a seal, brown and beautiful, swimming calmly, with happy handsome eyes. They met mine. One who was beside me said: “That is your sister Julia. See how happy she looks, and content....” Then everything was gone and I woke up in my quiet bedroom, the fire burning low and Ella in the chair by my side. “Do you want anything?” She leaned over me for the answer. “I have just seen Julia.” She hushed me, tears were in her reddened eyes. Our sister Julia had been dead two years, to our unextinguishable sorrow. “Don’t cry, she is very happy.” I told her my dream. She said it was a beautiful dream, and I was to try and sleep again. “Why are you sitting up?” I asked her. “It is not late,” was her evasive reply. Many nights after that I saw her sitting there, I forgot even to ask her why, I was too far gone, or perhaps only selfish. I did not know for a long time whether it was night or day. I always asked the time when I woke, but forgot or did not hear the answer, drank obediently through the feeding-cup,—the feeding-cup was always there; enormously large, unnaturally white, holding little or nothing, unsatisfactory. Once I remember I decided upon remaining awake to tell poor Ella how much better I felt.... I told it to Margaret instead, and she had no interest in the news, none at all. “I knew you were not going to die yet. Not until you had written my story.” “It seems not to matter,” I answered feebly, “to be small and trivial.” “_Work whilst ye have the light_,” she quoted. The words were in the room, in the air. “It is not light, not very light,” I pleaded.