“I have concluded not to tire you out completely this time, for I want to come again.”
“I think your going must be the result of some very hasty conclusion, Dawn. I had no intimation of it last evening. Really, unless you are ill, you are quite unfair to leave us so soon.” Mrs. Austin having made this remark, glanced for the first time at Dawn's white face. What had come over her? Was it Dawn who sat there so still and white? “Are you ill?” she asked, the tremor of her voice betraying her deep solicitude for the welfare of her visitor.
“No; but anxious. I must go to-day, however, or I shall be sick, and on your hands.”
“I'd a deal rather you should be on my hands, than weighing on my heart, as you are now,” and Mrs. Austin expressed the hope, after her husband had left, that she would confide to her the cause of her departure and sudden appearance of illness.
“I have had an unpleasant dream,” said Dawn, when they were alone, feeling that some explanation was due her friend, “and I must go home.”
“A dream! O, fie, I never mind them. Why, I once had a most frightful one about Ned. He was away on a journey, and I dreamt that the boat caught fire, and every one on board was lost. I even went so far as too see a messenger coming to tell me of the disaster.”
“But had not your mind been agitated through the day?”
“Why, I had read of some dreadful disasters, to be sure, and then I had retired at a late hour, after getting my mind wrought up about the liabilities of danger, which, of course, accounted for it-but was your dream about your father?”
“No.”
“Why must you go? Do you think any one is in danger? I think it was the result of the long ride, don't you?