By the side of a bright river strayed hand in hand two young females, seemingly rustics. Rain had fallen. The thousand torrents of the mountains were in play; and the general waters, swoln beyond the capacity of their customed channel, ran hurried and ruffled.
"Who would think," remarked the younger of the two,—"who would think that this was the river we saw yesterday?"
"'Tis changed indeed," said her companion; "but the sky that was lowering yesterday, you see, is bright and serene to-day. Did you hear the storm in the night?"
"No: I would I had. It would have saved me from a dream darker than any storm."
"A dream!—Tell it me. I am a reader of dreams."
"You know," began the younger,—"you know I was brought up with the only son of a distant branch of my father's house. I know not how it was, but, from my earliest recollection, my foster-mother, and others as well as she, set me down for his wife; and, strangely enough, I fancied myself so. Yet could it be nothing more than a sister's love that I bore him. Much he used to make of me. His pastime—even his studies—were regulated by my will. Being older than I, he let me play the fool to the very height of my caprice, which cost me many a chiding,—but not from him, though he had to bear the greater portion of the consequences. You know by his father's will he was enjoined to travel the last four years preceding his majority. He set out the very day that I completed my fourteenth year. I wish it had been before. I should have felt the separation less, for indeed it cost me real agony. For months after, they would catch me weeping: they did not know the cause; but 'twas for him! Still I only loved him as a brother—but a dear one,—Oh, Myra! I cannot tell you how dear!—and absence has not abated my feelings, as you may more than guess by my dream last night."
"Look!" interrupted the other; "see you not some one through the interval of the trees descending yonder road that winds round the foot of the nearest mountain?"
"No," replied the former, after she had looked in the direction a moment or two. "But attend to my dream. I thought I was married indeed, and that he was my husband; and that we were sitting at the bridal feast, placed on each side of my father; and there were the viands, and the wine, and the company, and everything as plain as you are that are standing there before me; when, all at once——"
"I see him again!" a second time interrupted the friend. "Look! don't you catch the figure?"—"No."