nd out of it as
well, for that matter. A nightmare is not always a sense of oppression
on the chest only; it may be an overpowering dread of something you
dream you see. Indigestion can produce, waking or asleep, a very good
imitation of what is experienced in a blue funk. And there is another
kind of dream which is produced by fasting--that, I need hardly say, I
have never experienced. Indeed, I don't dream."

"But the ghost--the ghost he almost saw."

"The sinking horror produced the ghost, instead of _vice versa_, as you
might suppose. It is like a dream. In unpleasant dreams we fancy it is
the dream itself which makes us feel uncomfortable. It is just the other
way round. It is the discomfort that produces the dream. Have you ever
dreamt you were tramping through snow, and felt cold in consequence? I
did the other night. But I did not feel cold because I dreamt I was
walking through snow, but because I had not enough blankets on my bed;
and because I felt cold I dreamt about the snow. Don't you know the
dream you make up in a few moments about the knocking at the door when
they call you in the morning? And ghosts are only waking dreams."

"I wonder if you ever had an illusion yourself--gave way to it, I mean.
You were in love once--twice," I added hastily, in deference to Lady
Atherley.

"Only once," said Atherley, calmly. "Do you ever see her now, Lindy? She
has grown enormously fat. Certainly I have had my illusions, and I don't
object to them when they are pleasant and harmless--on the contrary.
Now, falling in love, if you don't fall too deep, is pleasant, and it
never lasts long enough to do much mischief. Marriage, of course, you
will say, may be mischievous--only for the individual, it is useful for
the race. What I object to is the deliberate culture of illusions which
are not pleasant but distinctly depressing, like half your religious
beliefs."

"George," said Lady Atherley, coming into the room at this instant;
"have you--oh, dear! what a state this room is in!"

"It is the housemaids. They never will leave things as I put them."

"And it was only dusted and tidied an hour ago. Mr. Lyndsay, did you
ever see anything like it?"

I said "Never."

"If Lindy has a fault in this world, it is that he is as pernickety, as
my old nurse used to say--as pernickety as an old maid. The stiff
formality of his room would give me the creeps, if anything could. The
first thing I always want to do when I see it