Autumn we have said was near its close. The weather had given indications of an early and severe winter; and the widow, whose worn-out and delicate frame was affected by every change of atmosphere, had for a few days been more than usually indisposed. It was now long past noon, and she had but just risen. The apartment, however, bore witness that her young friend had paid her the accustomed morning visit; the fire was blazing on a clean, comfortable-looking hearth, and every little piece of furniture was arranged with the most scrupulous care. Her devotions were hardly over when the well-known tap and light foot of her friend Helen Henry were again heard at the door. “To-morrow, mother,” said Helen, as she took her seat beside her, “is Ernest’s birthday. Is it not strange that, when our minds make pictures of the dead, it is always as they looked best, and kindliest, and most lifelike? I have been seeing Ernest all day long, as when I saw him on his _last_ birthday.” “Ah, my bairn!” said the widow, grasping her young friend by the hand, “I see that, sae lang as we continue to meet, our thoughts will be aye running the ae way. I had a strange dream last night, an’ must tell it you. You see yon rock to the east, in the middle o’ the little bay, that now rises through the back draught o’ the sea, like the hulk o’ a ship, an’ is now buried in a mountain o’ foam. I dreamed I was sitting on that rock, in what seemed a bonny simmer’s morning. The sun was glancin’ on the water, an’ I could see the white sand far down at the bottom, wi’ the reflection o’ the little waves aboon running over it in long curls o’ gowd. But there was no way of leaving the rock, for the deep waters were round an’ round me; an’ I saw the tide covering ae wee bittie after anither, till at last the whole was covered. An’ yet I had but little fear, for I remembered that baith Ernest an’ William were in the sea afore me; an’ I had the feeling that I could hae rest nowhere but wi’ them. The water at last closed o’er me, an’ I sank frae aff the rock to the sand at the bottom. But death seemed to have no power given him to hurt me, an’ I walked as light as ever I had done on a gowany brae, through the green depths o’ the sea. I saw the silvery glitter o’ the trout an’ the salmon shining to the sun, far, far aboon me, like white pigeons i’ the lift; and around me there were crimson star-fish, an’ sea-flowers, and long trailing plants that waved in the tide like streamers; an’ at length I came to a steep rock wi’ a little cave like a tomb in it. Here, I said, is the end o’ my journey--William is here, an’ Ernest. An’ as I looked into the cave, I saw there were bones in it, an’ I prepared to take my place beside them. But, as I stooped to enter, some one called on me, an’, on looking up, there was William. ‘Lillias,’ he said, ‘it is not night yet, nor is that your bed; you are to sleep, not with me, but, lang after this, with Ernest; haste you