but greatly changed; for they appeared more like monsters of evil
than men, and were malignant in their efforts to do harm. Against him
they seemed to feel an especial hatred. Some glared and gleamed upon
him with the fire of murder in their eyes; some pointed to a cheerless
apartment, in which he saw his wife and children cowering and shivering
over a few dying embers, and they said--"It is your work! It is your
work!" They were devils in distorted human shapes, and he was terribly
afraid. Suddenly he was set upon by one, who caught him by the throat
and dragged him into what seemed the cell of a prison, where he was
cast upon a heap of straw, and left shuddering with cold and fear.
Alone, for days and weeks he remained in this prison, until despair
seemed to dry up the very blood in his veins, and, after a desperate
struggle to break through the bars of his narrow house, he sank down
exhausted and ready to die. Then came a new horror. He had died, to all
outward appearance, and was in his coffin. He felt his body compressed,
and gasped and panted for air in his narrow house of boards. It was an
awful moment. Suddenly a voice came to his ear: "Father! father!" It
was the voice of his child--of Kate. How its tones thrilled through
him! How his heart leaped with the hope of deliverance! "Father! dear
father!"--The call was renewed, but he could make no answer, for his
tongue was powerless. Again and again the call was repeated, yet he
could utter no sound--could make no sign. Farther off, then, he heard
his name called. Horror! she had failed to discover him, and was about
departing. In the agony of the moment he awoke. There was a hand laid
gently upon him, and a voice said--"Father! dear father! come!"

It was the voice of his child; the same voice that had penetrated his
dreaming ear.

"Oh, Kate!" he exclaimed, eagerly; "is it indeed you?"

"Yes, father," she answered; "and won't you come home with me?"

The wretched man did not answer in words but arose immediately and went
out with his daughter.

"Oh, what a dream I had, Kate!" said Mr. Ellis, as he left the door of
the tavern; "and you came to me in my dream."

His feelings were much excited, and he spoke with emotion.

"Did I, father?" replied the girl. "And how did I come? As a good angel
to save you?"

"Waking, you have come to me as such," answered the father after a
brief silence, speaking more calmly, and as if to himself.

How wild a thrill shot t