t I thought them
worth preserving. Perhaps you would not agree with me in that belief."

"If Number Five will give us a chance to form our own judgment about her
dream or vision, I think we shall enjoy it," said the Mistress. "She
knows what will please The Teacups in the way of reading as well as I do
how many lumps of sugar the Professor wants in his tea and how many I
want in mine."

The company was so urgent that Number Five sent up-stairs for her paper.

Number Five reads the story of her dream.

It cost me a great effort to set down the words of the manuscript from
which I am reading. My dreams for the most part fade away so soon after
their occurrence that I cannot recall them at all. But in this case my
ideas held together with remarkable tenacity. By keeping my mind
steadily upon the work, I gradually unfolded the narrative which follows,
as the famous Italian antiquary opened one of those fragile carbonized
manuscripts found in the ruins of Herculaneum or Pompeii.

The first thing I remember about it is that I was floating upward,
without any sense of effort on my part. The feeling was that of flying,
which I have often had in dreams, as have many other persons. It was the
most natural thing in the world,--a semi-materialized volition, if I may
use such an expression.

At the first moment of my new consciousness,--for I seemed to have just
emerged from a deep slumber, I was aware that there was a companion at my
side. Nothing could be more gracious than the way in which this being
accosted me. I will speak of it as she, because there was a delicacy, a
sweetness, a divine purity, about its aspect that recalled my ideal of
the loveliest womanhood.

"I am your companion and your guide," this being made me understand, as
she looked at me. Some faculty of which I had never before been
conscious had awakened in me, and I needed no interpreter to explain the
unspoken language of my celestial attendant.

"You are not yet outside of space and time," she said, "and I am going
with you through some parts of the phenomenal or apparent universe,--what
you call the material world. We have plenty of what you call time before
us, and we will take our voyage leisurely, looking at such objects of
interest as may attract our attention as we pass. The first thing you
will naturally wish to look at will be the earth you have just left.
This is about the right distance," she said, and we paused in our flight.

The great g