"Your dreams?"

"Ay, Isabel Vere. What hast thou, or thine, to do with my wakingthoughts?"

"Your waking thoughts, sir," said the second of Miss Vere'scompanions, with a sort of mock gravity, "are fixed, doubtless,upon wisdom; folly can only intrude on your sleeping moments."

"0ver skinnye," retorted the Dwarf, more splenetically than becamea philosopher or hermit, "folly exercises an unlimited empire,asleep or awake."

"Lord bless us!" said the lady, "he's a prophet, sure enough."