"Oh, I am difficult to please, you know," I replied, trying to laugh. "Girls, old or young, and widows seldom agree; besides, I can only care for people whom I have known a long time." She did not answer, but pushed her hair back from her forehead, and looked absently at the flowers. "I have such bad dreams," she said; "I never can recall them distinctly; but they seem full of trouble." "Of whom do you dream?" "All of you--principally of Jessie. Sometimes I think I must be awake and standing in her room--the vision is so real." "Such fancies are very common to an invalid," I said. "Oh, yes; I don't mind them." She pulled the flowers toward her, and began playing with them after Jessie's childish fashion. It gave me a strange feeling to see those blossoms in her hand; when I remembered whose gift they had been, I felt as if my friend held Cleopatra's venomous asp in every flower that she touched. "Will you read to me a while?" she asked, at length. "There is a new poem on the table; take that." Of course, I complied at once, and read to her for some time; then I saw the flowers drop from her hand--her head sank back among the pillows, and soon her regular breathing proved that she was sleeping quietly. I laid down the volume, and looked at her with pain and solicitude. She was so helpless! The least shock might terminate that frail existence; and I had grown so nervous that I was always expecting some trouble to force itself into that room, which, until lately, had been securely guarded by a husband's love. She moved restlessly in her sleep; broken words fell from her lips; very soon they framed themselves into complete sentences. She had sunk into one of those singular somnambulistic slumbers which formed such a strange feature of her illness. "I am tired," she said; "I have walked so fast! How pretty the summer-house looks! It is so long since I have been here! There is Mr. Lee--" She paused and breathed rapidly. "Why, Mrs. Dennison is with him! She said she was going to Jessie's room! How earnestly she talks to him! She lays her hand on his arm!" She paused again, with a sort of cry. "Martha Hyde! Martha! my husband is giving her flowers--passion-flowers! She asks him to put them in her hair! What does that mean, say?" She became so violently agitated that I thought it best to rouse her. I leaned over her and shook her arm slightly. The change of position seemed to alter the dream, and once more she slept quietly. I went back to the window, and sat looking out behind the curtains. It was sunset, and gorgeously beautiful. But in the distraction of my thoughts I could not heed its loveliness. While I sat there I saw Mr. Lee and Mrs. Dennison pass along one of the paths. They had been out on the upper terrace, and were approaching the house. The lady had no bonnet on, and wreathed in her hair I saw some superb passion-flowers which the poor wife had described in her dream.