I hastily ornamented our rural banquet-hall with long branches of roses and honeysuckles in full bloom, stuck into the leafy roof.  As we sat chatting and laughing over our simple treat, a humming-bird darted several times in and out.  “A messenger!” whispered I to Aunt Linny.  “Depend upon it, Cousin Harry didn’t marry the English lady.”

CHAPTER III.

The next morning I slept late.  Fancy had all night been busy, combining her old and new materials into many a wild shape.  After my aunt had risen at her usual early hour, I fell into one of those balmy morning-naps which make up for a whole night’s unrest.  I dreamed still, but the visions floated by with that sweet changeful play which soothes rather than fatigues the brain.  The principal objects were always the same; but the combination shifted every instant, as by the turn of a kaleidoscope.  At length they arranged themselves in a lovely miniature scene in a convex mirror.  There bloomed the little Button-Rose in the centre, and above it the humming-bird glanced and murmured, and now and then darted his slender bill deep into the bosom of the flowers.  With hands clasped above this central object, as if exchanging vows upon an altar, stood the young human pair.  Of a sudden, old Cornelius Agrippa was in the room, robed in a black scholar’s-gown, over which his snowy beard descended nearly to his knees.  Stretching forth a long white wand, he touched the picture, and immediately a wedding procession began to move out of the magic crystal, the figures, as they emerged, assuming the size of life.  First tripped a numerous train of white-robed little maidens, scattering flowers; then came a priest in surplice and bands, holding before him a great open service-book; after him, the bridal pair, attended by their friends.  But by an odd trick of fancy, the bridegroom, who looked very stately and happy, appeared with the china flower-pot containing the Button-Rose balanced on the end of his nose!  Awaked by my own laughter at this comical sight, I opened my eyes and found Aunt Linny sitting on the bedside and laughing with me.

“I should have waked you before, Katy,” said she, “if you had not seemed to be enjoying yourself so much.  Come, unfold your dream.  I presume it will save me the trouble of telling you the contents of this wonderful epistle which I hold in my hand.”

“It’s from Cousin Harry!  Huzza!” cried I, springing up to snatch it.

But she held it out of my reach.  “Softly! good Mistress Fortuneteller,” said she.  “Read me the letter without seeing it, and then I shall know that you can tell the interpretation thereof.”

“Of course it’s from Cousin Harry.  That’s what the humming-bird came to say last night.  As for the contents,—­he’s not married,—­his heart turns to the sister-friend of his youth,—­he yearns to look into her lustrous orbs once more,—­she alone, he finds, is the completion of his ’Ich’.  He hastens across the dark blue sea; soon will she behold him at her feet.”