him in the carriage. This person was our lodger, Mr. Smith, and was gone
as soon as seen. My wife, even in her dream, could not act or speak; but
as the child was lifted into the carriage-door, a man, whose face was
full of beautiful tenderness and compassion, leaned forward from the
carriage and received the little child, which, stretching his arms to the
stranger, looked back with a strange smile upon his mother.

"He is safe with me, and I will deliver him to you when you come."

These words the man spoke, looking upon her, as he received him, and
immediately the carriage-door shut, and the noise of its closing wakened
my wife from her nightmare.

This dream troubled her very much, and even haunted my mind unpleasantly
too. We agreed, however, not to speak of it to anybody, not to divulge
any of our misgivings respecting the stranger. We were anxious that
neither the children nor the servants should catch the contagion of those
fears which had seized upon my poor little wife, and, if truth were
spoken, upon myself in some degree also. But this precaution was, I
believe, needless, for, as I said before, everybody under the same roof
with Mr. Smith was, to a certain extent, affected with the same nervous
gloom and apprehension.

And now commences a melancholy chapter in my life. My poor little Fanny
was attacked with a cough which soon grew very violent, and after a time
degenerated into a sharp attack of inflammation. We were seriously
alarmed for her life, and nothing that care and medicine could effect
was spared to save it. Her mother was indefatigable, and scarcely left
her night or day; and, indeed, for some time, we all but despaired of
her recovery.