saddening. After a time
it became exasperating, and then maddening. He tried to sleep, but he
only tossed. He tried to meditate, but he only wandered--not "in
dreams", however. He tried to laugh, but the laugh degenerated into a
growl. Then he sighed, and the sigh ended in a groan. Finally, he got
up and walked up and down the floor till his legs were cold, when he
turned into bed again, very tired, and fell asleep, but not to rest--to
dream.

He dreamt that he was at the forge again, and that he and Dove were
trying to smash their anvils with the sledge-hammers--bang and bang
about. But the anvil would not break. At last he grew desperate, hit
the horn off, and then, with another terrific blow, smashed the whole
affair to atoms!

This startled him a little, and he awoke sufficiently to become aware of
the fog-bells.

Again he dreamed. Minnie was his theme now, but, strange to say, he
felt little or no tenderness towards her. She was beset by a hundred
ruffians in pea-jackets and sou'westers. Something stirred him to
madness. He rushed at the foe, and began to hit out at them right and
left. The hitting was slow, but sure--regular as clock-work. First the
right, then the left, and at each blow a seaman's nose was driven into
his head, and a seaman's body lay flat on the ground. At length they
were all floored but one--the last and the biggest. Ruby threw all his
remaining strength into one crashing blow, drove his fist right through
his antagonist's body, and awoke with a start to find his knuckles
bleeding.

"Hang these bells!" he exclaimed, starting up and gazing round him in
despair. Then he fell back on his pillow in despair, and went to sleep
in despair.

Once more he dreamed. He was going to church now, dressed in a suit of
the finest broadcloth, with Minnie on his arm, clothed in pure white,
emblematic, it struck him, of her pure gentle spirit. Friends were with
him, all gaily attired, and very happy, but unaccountably silent.
Perhaps it was the noise of the wedding-bells that rendered their voices
inaudible. He was struck by the solemnity as well as the pertinacity of
these wedding-bells as he entered the church. He was puzzled too, being
a Presbyterian, why he was to be married in church, but being a man of
liberal mind, he made no objection to it.

They all assembled in front of the pulpit, into which the clergyman, a
very reverend but determined man, mounted with a prayer book in