r in my ears as they do in
yours. Why, the naughty things hardly ever speak to me, and when they do,
they tell a very different story from those they tell you. It is generally
about falling down from a church steeple, or something of that kind. Well,
what did they say to you this time, dear?"

"I never had such a dream before," said the favorite, her face glowing with
a new, almost an unearthly radiance; "I mean I never had one just like it.
When dear mother died, you remember I told you a dream about the angels.
Last night I thought they came to me again, and I saw mother, too, so
clearly!"

She stopped, and her eyes fell. She seemed almost sorry that she had said
as much; for she had not forgotten that the former dream to which she
alluded had caused her sisters pain, and she thought, that perhaps she
should make them unhappy again, if she related her dream of the night
before. But her sisters begged her to go on, and she did so.

"When I went to sleep," said she, "I was thinking of--of--what father had
said to me"--and she burst into a flood of tears. Her sisters wept, too;
for they well remembered that their father had come home intoxicated that
night, and that he had spoken very harshly to them all, and especially to
the youngest. They could not say much to console her. What could they say?
Silently they wept, and by their tears and embraces they told her how
deeply they sympathized with her, and how much they would do for her, if
they could. When the little dreamer was able to go on, she said,

"I was thinking about this when I went to sleep. I thought I was crying,
and wondering why God should let dear mother die, and leave us all alone,
when I heard some one say, 'Look up,' I looked up in the sky, and all the
stars were windows, and I saw through them. I saw heaven--so beautiful--so
beautiful! I saw mother looking out of one of these windows, and she
smiled, as she did when we brought the rose to her bed-side. I heard her
call my name, and she reached her arms toward me, and said, 'You may come,'
Oh, this was not like other dreams"----

"Don't think of it, dear sister; don't think of it any more," said Eliza.
"You was not well last night, and I have often heard, that when people are
ill, their dreams are more apt to be disturbed. But we will not say any
more about it now, dear."

"No," said Maria; "we shall all feel too sad, if we do." And she made an
effort to be cheerful; though tears stood in her eyes as