meeting in the forest with Septimius's ancestor,--appeared at the door of
the room, aroused from her bed, and shaking her finger at him.

"Septimius," said she, "you keep me awake, and you will ruin your eyes, and
turn your head, if you study till midnight in this manner. You'll never
live to be a minister, if this is the way you go on."

"Well, well, Aunt Keziah," said Septimius, covering his manuscript with a
book, "I am just going to bed now."

"Good night, then," said the old woman; "and God bless your labors."

Strangely enough, a glance at the manuscript, as he hid it from the old
woman, had seemed to Septimius to reveal another sentence, of which he had
imperfectly caught the purport; and when she had gone, he in vain sought
the place, and vainly, too, endeavored to recall the meaning of what he
had read. Doubtless his fancy exaggerated the importance of the sentence,
and he felt as if it might have vanished from the book forever. In fact,
the unfortunate young man, excited and tossed to and fro by a variety of
unusual impulses, was got into a bad way, and was likely enough to go mad,
unless the balancing portion of his mind proved to be of greater volume
and effect than as yet appeared to be the case.

* * * * *

The next morning he was up, bright and early, poring over the manuscript
with the sharpened wits of the new day, peering into its night, into its
old, blurred, forgotten dream; and, indeed, he had been dreaming about it,
and was fully possessed with the idea that, in his dream, he had taken up
the inscrutable document, and read it off as glibly as he would the page