le of visions.

Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing
the red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare
irradiated the chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.

"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she said,
coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. "I wish
we were. They seem to be very nice people."

"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man
well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never
have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in
the kitchen, drink mead and elderwine, and sand the floor to keep it
clean. A sensible way of life; but would you like it?"

"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter,
was she not?"

"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose
she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since."

That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she
hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before.
It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many
fluctuations as the Northern Lights, as much colour as a parterre
in June, and was as crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen
Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far removed from
commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of
Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the
circumstances of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could
be.

There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music,
and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her
through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being
closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came
into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman
in Parad