to his own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he
loved the alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he
did that morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to
his real wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days,
after that dream.

No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a
dream. "What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought
to myself, in my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We
shall have a deal of trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this
thought quite troubled me until the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well,
it's only a dream."

And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out
about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter
out between themselves.

It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and
alarming, to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall
awake soon and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish
perplexity with a smile then.

Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing,
and then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the
fretful play is but a dream--a brief, uneasy dream of three score
years and ten, or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will
awake--at least, he dreams so.

How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams--waking dreams,
I mean--the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the