254 THE FINALE. 



heedless, idle fly, but, alas! that busy bee, Martha our 

 faithful Martha ! For a moment we stood horror-stricken ; 

 then, armed by rage and grief and the kitchen poker, we 

 rushed upon the loathsome murderess, who, intent upon her 

 prey, heeded not our approach, and, with a single blow, 

 brought her bloated body lifeless to the ground, that of her 

 victim falling with it. 



What a night of terror did we pass, holding our vigil by the 

 dead; but we held it not alone, for beside poor Martha's 

 hearth, mocking or mourning its desolation, sat a monstrous 

 cricket, piercing our ear and heart with his shrilly chirp ; 

 while at intervals loud as the ticking of a church-clock 

 rose the warning click of an enormous death-watch. 



We heard no more our heart sickened our head swam 



our powerless arms quitted their hold and we fell 



into the insect monster's devouring jaw? Not a bit of it, 

 dear reader. We only fell (having suddenly awoke) from the 

 appalling position to which our sleeping fancy had raised us, 

 to the flowery bank which had been our bed beneath the old 

 elm pollard. 



"What a precious extravaganza!" we mentally exclaimed, 

 as sitting up we recovered a joyful consciousness of the realities 

 around the pleasant realities of a summer's evening for the 

 sun had declined, and a refreshing breeze was waving the 

 silken, silvery heads of the reeds below us. 



We are no interpreters of visions our own or other 

 people's ; but being, in our way, a sort of utilitarian, we have 

 always fancied that dreams (not merely those which would 

 seern sent expressly for reproof or warning, but dreams in 

 general) may be made available to good by the process of 

 recalling and turning their purport over in our minds, even 

 as we should muse habitually over our waking thoughts; a 

 mental exercise than which, according to philosophers, there 

 is none more useful. 



With a view to some such purpose of improvement, we 



