270 THE FINALE. 



view ; but to him our proximity was evidently obvious, either 

 by vision of more nocturnal power than our own, or through 

 that sense by which the blood-hound tracks his victim. We 

 heard him slowly ascend the rugged trunk, then climb, rust- 

 ling, through the branches under us ! We heard no more 

 our heart sickened our head swam our powerless arms 



quitted their hold and we fell into the insect monster's 



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 I" we mentally exclaimed, 

 as sitting up we recovered a joyful consciousness of the reali- 

 ties 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 

 seem 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 



