man.

As it was necessary that the sick boy should be kept as quiet as
possible, no one went near his room except old Aggie and those whose
services could not be dispensed with. Old Aggie alone was allowed to
talk to the invalid, and a long time would have elapsed before she could
venture to speak of the circumstances which had brought about this
dreadful illness, had not the young squire himself entered on the
subject.

"Aggie," said he one morning, after he had lain a long time quite still,
"I have been dreaming a beautiful dream."

This was quite delightful to the old nurse, who for many long days had
heard of nothing but visions of the most frightful kind.

"I saw a rose bush--"

"Hush, hush, Master James," said Aggie, terrified lest the dreadful
subject should come uppermost again, and once more bring on the delirium
and a relapse of the fever.

"No, no, Aggie, I cannot hush; it was a beautiful dream, and it has done
me more good than all the doctor's medicine. I saw a rose bush--a
moss-rose--and it had one bud upon it, and sitting under the bud was
little Jacob Dobbin. O Aggie, it was the same Jacob that used to be down
at the cottage, for I knew his face; but he was beautiful, instead of
sickly-looking; and instead of being all ragged, he was dressed in
something like silver. I wanted to run away from him, but he looked so
kindly at me that I could not stir; and at last he beckoned to me, and I
stood quite close to him; and only he looked so softly at me, I must
have been dazzled by the light on his face and his silvery clothes.

"I did not feel as though I dared to speak to him; but at last he spoke
to me, and his voice was as soft as a flute, and he said, 'All the roses
on earth fade and wither, but nothing fades or withers in the happy
place where I now live; and oh, do not be anxious to possess the
withering, fading flowers, but walk on the road that leads to my happy
home, where everything is bright for ever and ever.'

"Aggie, Aggie," said James Courtenay, who saw his nurse's anxious face,
and that she was about to stop his speaking any more, "it is no use to
try to stop my telling you all about it. My head has been so strange of
late, that I forget everything, and I am afraid of forgetting this
dream; so I must tell it now, and you are to write it down, that I may
have it to read, if it should slip out of my mind. Jacob Dobbin
said,--'You are not now in the right road; but ask Jesus to pardon you