my eyes, and cast about to try and recall the dream, but it has gone.

I rise to my feet, only to fall back comfortably into the armchair.

"There! You are failing asleep again, little Nicolas," says Mamma. "You
had better go to by-by."

"No, I won't go to sleep, Mamma," I reply, though almost inaudibly, for
pleasant dreams are filling all my soul. The sound sleep of childhood is
weighing my eyelids down, and for a few moments I sink into slumber and
oblivion until awakened by some one. I feel in my sleep as though a
soft hand were caressing me. I know it by the touch, and, though still
dreaming, I seize hold of it and press it to my lips. Every one else has
gone to bed, and only one candle remains burning in the drawing-room.
Mamma has said that she herself will wake me. She sits down on the arm
of the chair in which I am asleep, with her soft hand stroking my hair,
and I hear her beloved, well-known voice say in my ear:

"Get up, my darling. It is time to go by-by."

No envious gaze sees her now. She is not afraid to shed upon me the
whole of her tenderness and love. I do not wake up, yet I kiss and kiss
her hand.

"Get up, then, my angel."

She passes her other arm round my neck, and her fingers tickle me as
they move across it. The room is quiet and in half-darkness, but the
tickling has touched my nerves and I begin to awake. Mamma is sitting
near me--that I can tell--and touching me; I can hear her voice and