Yesternight I
had a dream, Helen, such as yours might be; for in my broken and fevered
slumbers, wherever I turned, one vision awaited me. There was a savage
arm, and over it fell a shower of golden hair, and ever and anon, in the
shadowy light of my dream, a knife glittered and waved before me. We
were safe, but over one,--some young and innocent and tender one it
was--there hung a hopeless and inexorable fate. Once methought it seemed
the young English girl that was wedded here last winter, and once she
turned her eye upon me--Ha!--I had forgotten that glance of
agony--surely, Helen, it was _yours_.
_Mrs. G_. Helen! my child--(_Aside_.) There it is, that same curdling
glance,--'twas but a dream, Helen. Why do you stand there so white and
motionless--why do you look on me with that fixed and darkening
eye?--'twas but a dream!
_Helen_. And where were you?--tell me truly. Was it not by a gurgling
fountain among the pine trees there? and was it not noon-day in your
dream, a hot, bright, sultry noon, and a few clouds swelling in the
western sky, and nothing but the trilling locusts astir?
_Mrs. G_. How wildly you talk; how should I remember any thing like
this?
_Helen_.
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