art with fear.

"Mary," said her husband, with the utmost solemnity, "I cannot regard
this as a dream alone. I have awakened with the firm conviction that I
have only seven days left to live. I feel that God has spoken to me;
and I have only seven days more to do my work in this world."

"O Robert! it was only a dream."

"No; it was more, Mary. You know I am not imaginative or superstitious
in the least. You know I never dream. And this was something else. I
shall die out of this world a week from to-night. Are the children
here? Call them in."

Mr. Hardy spoke in a tone of such calm conviction, that Mrs. Hardy was
filled with wonder and fear. She went to the curtain, and, as we have
already recorded, she called the children into the other room.

Mr. Hardy gazed upon his children with a look they had not seen upon
his face for years. Briefly but calmly he related his experience,
omitting the details of the vision and all mention of the scene where
George had appeared, and then declared with a solemnity and
impressiveness that could not be resisted:

"My dear children, I have not lived as I should. I have not been to
you the father I ought to have been. I have lived a very selfish,
useless life. I have only seven more days to live. God has spoken to
me. I am--"

He broke off suddenly, and, sobbing as only a strong man can, he drew
his wife toward him and caressed her, while Bess crept up and put her
arms about her father's neck.

The terrible suspicion shot into Mrs. Hardy's mind that her husband was
insane. The children were terrified; only Alice seemed to catch the
reflection of her mother's thought. At the same time, Mr. Hardy seemed
to feel the suspicion held by them.

"No," he said, as if in answer to a spoken charge, "I am not insane. I
never was more calm. I am in possession of all my faculties. But I
have looked into the Face of Eternity this night and I know, I know
that in seven days God will require my soul. Mary," he turned to his
wife with the most beseeching cry, "Mary, do you believe me?"

She looked into her husband's face and saw there the old look. Reason,
the noblest of all gifts, shone out of that noble face now lighted up
with the old love, and standing on the brink of the other world. And
Mrs. Hardy, looking her husband in the face, replied:

"Yes, Robert, I believe you. You may be mistaken in this impression
about the time left you to live, but you are not insan