“One is so apt to wake up just as things get interesting,” remarked the Story Girl discontentedly.

“I dreamed last night that I had really truly curly hair,” said Cecily mournfully.  “And oh, I was so happy!  It was dreadful to wake up and find it as straight as ever.”

Felix, that sober, solid fellow, dreamed constantly of flying through the air.  His descriptions of his aerial flights over the tree-tops of dreamland always filled us with envy.  None of the rest of us could ever compass such a dream, not even the Story Girl, who might have been expected to dream of flying if anybody did.  Felix had a knack of dreaming anyhow, and his dream book, while suffering somewhat in comparison of literary style, was about the best of the lot when it came to subject matter.  Cecily’s might be more dramatic, but Felix’s was more amusing.  The dream which we all counted his masterpiece was the one in which a menagerie had camped in the orchard and the rhinoceros chased Aunt Janet around and around the Pulpit Stone, but turned into an inoffensive pig when it was on the point of catching her.

Felix had a sick spell soon after we began our dream books, and Aunt Janet essayed to cure him by administering a dose of liver pills which Elder Frewen had assured her were a cure-all for every disease the flesh is heir to.  But Felix flatly refused to take liver pills; Mexican Tea he would drink, but liver pills he would not take, in spite of his own suffering and Aunt Janet’s commands and entreaties.  I could not understand his antipathy to the insignificant little white pellets, which were so easy to swallow; but he explained the matter to us in the orchard when he had recovered his usual health and spirits.

“I was afraid to take the liver pills for fear they’d prevent me from dreaming,” he said.  “Don’t you remember old Miss Baxter in Toronto, Bev?  And how she told Mrs. McLaren that she was subject to terrible dreams, and finally she took two liver pills and never had any more dreams after that.  I’d rather have died than risk it,” concluded Felix solemnly.

“I’d an exciting dream last night for once,” said Dan triumphantly.  “I dreamt old Peg Bowen chased me.  I thought I was up to her house and she took after me.  You bet I scooted.  And she caught me—­yes, sir!  I felt her skinny hand reach out and clutch my shoulder.  I let out a screech—­and woke up.”

“I should think you did screech,” said Felicity.  “We heard you clean over into our room.”

“I hate to dream of being chased because I can never run,” said Sara Ray with a shiver.  “I just stand rooted to the ground—­and see it coming—­and can’t stir.  It don’t sound much written out, but it’s awful to go through.  I’m sure I hope I’ll never dream Peg Bowen chases me.  I’ll die if I do.”

“I wonder what Peg Bowen would really do to a fellow if she caught him,” speculated Dan.

“Peg Bowen doesn’t need to catch you to do things to you,” said Peter ominously.  “She can put ill-luck on you just by looking at you—­and she will if you offend her.”