children whose memory was still so dear, she could not forget if she
forgave it, she who was childless. Why it was so, being but a man, I
cannot say; for who can know all the mystery of a loving woman's heart?
But so it was. Once, indeed, we quarrelled on the matter; it was our
only quarrel.

It chanced that when we had been married but two years, and our babe was
some few days buried in the churchyard of this parish of Ditchingham,
I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my wife's side.
I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the tallest lad
bore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the great siege,
came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people of the Otomie
in the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me flowers and kissing
my hands. I looked upon their strength and beauty, and was proud at
heart, and, in my dream, it seemed as though some great sorrow had been
lifted from my mind; as though these dear ones had been lost and now
were found again. Ah! what misery is there like to this misery of
dreams, that can thus give us back our dead in mockery, and then
departing, leave us with a keener woe?

Well, I dreamed on, talking with my children in my sleep and naming them
by their beloved names, till at length I woke to look on emptiness, and
knowing all my sorrow I sobbed aloud. Now it was early morning, and the
light of the August sun streamed through the window, but I, deeming
that my wife slept, still lay in the shadow of my dream as it were, and
groaned, murmuring the names of those whom I might never see again.
It chanced, however, that she was awake, and had overheard those words
which I spoke with the dead, while I was yet asleep and after; and
though some of this talk was in the tongue of the Otomie, the most was
English, and knowing the names of my children she guessed the purport