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"Well, now, it seems to me," said the widow, "just like this -- that the Lord was so merciful to you and to us, that he was willing to show us in such a dream how unbounded was his power and his mercy; that he could even lift us up out of this pit of woe, as he did Jeremiah and Joseph, and as he recovered Daniel from the den of lions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace. Now we must believe in him with strong faith -- perhaps if we had faith he would do something for us as good as that dream, every bit of it, Mag."

Good old praying saint, she sees mercy in every dispensation, the outstretched arm of Israel's God in every cloud.

"Now, Mrs. Prescott," said Dan, "what's the use of talking after that sort? You know that Mag's dream is a regular devil's idea to worry people. There's no more hope of it's coming to pass than there is that Captain Bunce will live a hundred years."

"I have great faith," said she in reply, "in the Lord's promises; and does he not say, your sons and your daughters shall dream dreams?"

"Well, did that mean Mag Davis?" said Dan.

"Of course it did!" said Mag, with a shout and a laugh. "Well, now," continued she, "I had another dream -- want to hear it, say?"

"Yes, tell it," said several.

Poor, ignorant, and oppressed creatures always love to tell and hear dreams; they are a superstitious class of persons. "Well," said Mag, "now get your ears wide open; this is a true dream, and scarey, too. One night, it was a dark, stormy night, the wind was very high, and the old trees swayed one way and another, groaning like the ghosts that sometimes come round here from the graves of our sort of folks -- for you know they can't rest easy in their graves, don't you?"

"That's likely enough," said Cowles, who was rather easily frightened, having thought he had seen a ghost two or three times running through the orchard and dancing about among the trees -- "I have no doubt they do rise."

"Nor I," said Mag, "not one jot nor grain."

"I hope there are none out to-night," said Dan, with some more concern than he usually exhibited.

"If there are any," said Jims, "they'll shake their teeth in your face, old Dan, I know."

"Why so?" growled he.

"Because they are going to have your body and soul as soon as they can make room for you," said the boy.

"Get you gone, boy, don't fury me -- what's the use? Well, go on, Mag."

"The ghosts rise, everybody knows that, when they're a mind to, and I say it was a good night to remind one of them that I speak of, a dark, stormy, windy, howling night, and I could see something moving about in the orchard that seemed to me half ghost, and half animal with horns-- all scaring me a good deal, so that I went and told aunt Dorothy, now dead and gone, though I think her ghost isn't far off."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Dan.

"Well, she said it looked frightful, and we both trembled, till finally it slowly began to fade away, and by-and-bye totally disappeared behind the barn."

"The old white horse!" said Bill, "as true as I'm a live soul, ha! ha! ha!"

"How do you know what it was, nigur?" shouted the hag.

"Because I saw him, and led him away myself. Miss."

"You lie -- it was a ghost," said Mag, in tones as sharp and mad as a hyena--" it was a ghost I I saw it and so did aunt Dorothy."

"I led the old horse away, I tell you, by the ear of his head, and took him round behind the barn, and so on into his stable. There was no ghost, miss, not a speegle was out that night -- nor is there -- very often, my word for it," said old Bill, with spirit.

But Mag was a hard one to put down, and was only pacified by Dan seizing her by the wrists and holding her as in a vice, while he thundered in her ears -- "Be still, you hag, and tell your dream. Let the ghosts go to h -- , where they came from. Give us the dream, I say -- do you hear?"

"By and bye," said Mag, "we laid down and went Id to a hard sleep. But I kept dreaming all night, and once I dreamed that aunt Joanna Dodge was out a good way from home, plodding along in the snow with her red handkerchief on her head, weeping on account of her sorrows and the bad walking; when all at once a good-looking person dressed in misty white came along and threw a white blanket over her and took her into his care. Then she got along well. By and bye I thought there was a great wedding and a mighty crowd of people present. But "who do you think was the bride, hey?"

"Don't know!" said several.

"Can't you guess?" inquired she.

"No, unless it was aunt Joanna herself," said Mrs. Prescott.

"And it was she! It was old aunt Joanna herself, married and took to a steady home in her old age. Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the dreaming Mag.

The widow fairly hung her head down in her lap. She didn't know what to say.

"There! I knew it would puzzle you," said Mag. -- "Isn't it 'odds and likely' that my dream of aunt Joanna will come to pass? ha! ha! ha!"

"Perhaps it will for all," said Mrs. Rice. "You know old folks sometimes get married."