they considered this destructive malady as a special mark of providential favor for them.  How about the miserable Indians?  Were they anything but planetary foundlings?  No!  Civilization is a great foundling hospital, and fortunate are all those who get safely into the creche before the frost or the malaria has killed them, the wild beasts or the venomous reptiles worked out their deadly appetites and instincts upon them.  The very idea of humanity seems to be that it shall take care of itself and develop its powers in the “struggle for life.”  Whether we approve it or not, if we can judge by the material record, man was born a foundling, and fought his way as he best might to that kind of existence which we call civilized,—­one which a considerable part of the inhabitants of our planet have reached.

If you do not like the expression planetary foundlings, I have no objection to your considering the race as put out to nurse.  And what a nurse Nature is!  She gives her charge a hole in the rocks to live in, ice for his pillow and snow for his blanket, in one part of the world; the jungle for his bedroom in another, with the tiger for his watch-dog, and the cobra as his playfellow.

Well, I said, there may be other parts of the universe where there are no tigers and no cobras.  It is not quite certain that such realms of creation are better off, on the whole, than this earthly residence of ours, which has fought its way up to the development of such centres of civilization as Athens and Rome, to such personalities as Socrates, as Washington.

“One of our company has been on an excursion among the celestial bodies of our system, I understand,” said the Professor.

Number Five colored.  “Nothing but a dream,” she said.  “The truth is, I had taken ether in the evening for a touch of neuralgia, and it set my imagination at work in a way quite unusual with me.  I had been reading a number of books about an ideal condition of society,—­Sir Thomas Mores ‘Utopia,’ Lord Bacon’s ‘New Atlantis,’ and another of more recent date.  I went to bed with my brain a good deal excited, and fell into a deep slumber, in which I passed through some experiences so singular that, on awaking, I put them down on paper.  I don’t know that there is anything very original about the experiences I have recorded, but I thought them worth preserving.  Perhaps you would not agree with me in that belief.”

“If Number Five will give us a chance to form our own judgment about her dream or vision, I think we shall enjoy it,” said the Mistress.  “She knows what will please The Teacups in the way of reading as well as I do how many lumps of sugar the Professor wants in his tea and how many I want in mine.”

The company was so urgent that Number Five sent up-stairs for her paper.

Number Five reads the story of her dream.

It cost me a great effort to set down the words of the manuscript from which I am reading.  My dreams for the most part fade away so soon after their occurrence that I cannot recall them at all.  But in this case my ideas held together with remarkable tenacity.  By keeping my mind steadily upon the work, I gradually unfolded the narrative which follows, as the famous Italian antiquary opened one of those fragile carbonized manuscripts found in the ruins of Herculaneum or Pompeii.