'I dreamed, Ma'am, the night before he came, a great fellow was at the hall-door.' 'What! here?' 'Yes, Ma'am, this hall-door. So muffled up I could not see his face; and he pulls out a letter all over red.' 'Red?' 'Aye, Miss; a red letter.' 'Red ink?' 'No, Miss, red _paper_, written with black, and directed for you.' 'Oh!' 'And so, Miss, in my dream, I gave it you in the drawing-room; and you opened it, and leaned your hand upon your head, sick-like, reading it. I never saw you read a letter so serious-like before. And says you to me, Miss, "It's all about Master Stanley; he is coming." And sure enough, here he was quite unexpected, next morning.' 'And was there no more?' asked Miss Lake. 'No more, Miss. I awoke just then.' 'It _is_ odd,' said Miss Lake, with a little laugh. 'Had you been thinking of him lately?' 'Not a bit, Ma'am. I don't know when.' 'Well, it certainly is _very_ odd.' At all events, it had glanced upon a sensitive recollection unexpectedly. The kitchen was only a kitchen now; and the young lady, on a sudden, looked thoughtful--perhaps a little sad. She rose; and old Tamar got up before her, with her scared, secret look, clothed in white--the witch, whose word had changed all, and summoned round her those shapes, which threw their indistinct shadows on the walls and faces around. 'Light the candles in the drawing-room, Margery, and then, child, go to your bed,' said the young lady, awakening from an abstraction. 'I don't mind dreams, Tamar, nor fortune-tellers--I've dreamed so many good dreams, and no good ever came of them. But talking of Stanley reminds me of trouble and follies that I can't help, or prevent. He has left the army, Tamar, and I don't know what his plans are.' 'Ah! poor child; he was always foolish and changeable, and a deal too innocent for them wicked officer-gentlemen; and I'm glad he's not among them any longer to learn bad ways--I am.' So, the drawing-room being prepared, Rachel bid Tamar and little Margery good-night, and the sleepy little handmaid stumped off to her bed; and white old Tamar, who had not spoken so much for a month before, put on her solemn round spectacles, and by her dipt candle read her chapter in the ponderous Bible she had thumbed so well, and her white lips told over the words as she read them in silence. Old Tamar, I always thought, had seen many untold things in her day, and some of her recollections troubled her, I dare say; and she held her tongue, and knitted her white worsteds when she could sit quiet--which was most hours of the day; and now and then when evil remembrances, maybe, gathered round her solitude, she warned them off with that book of power--so that my recollection of her is always the same white-clad, cadaverous old woman, with a pair of barnacles on her nose, and her look of secrecy and suffering turned on the large print of that worn volume, or else on the fumbling-points of her knitting-needles.