An account

T n.m nni+,p> snrp. thai-, IVTarian TTno'VifiS rAn.rl r\r\\ I am quite sure that Marian Hughes read not a word aloud, and did not mention to me any of the circumstances which reproduced themselves with the grotesque triviality of such things in my dream, and that I did not know anything of the contents of the book. It was one of a number sent me to review (I leave it with you, with the relevant passages marked), and Marian being very unwell, I advised her to look through the heap instead of doing anything else. She sat by me all the evening reading this novel. I was busy with something else, and we hardly exchanged a word. We went to bed at the same time, and I had a vivid dream of meeting two children in the street (there is only one in the book), and getting into a conversation with the girl about building. The only sentence which remains with me is the absurd one, ' What ! don't you know that all the heart of oak used in England comes from Florence ? ' where she told me she had lived all her life. I had a vivid sense in my dream of the intelligence and rare knowledge of the little girl, and when I opened the book at p. 38 it came to me with an almost startling sense of familiarity. I think I mentioned that I was wandering with my little girl in a curious new building, and noticed the ceiling, but it was not a cathedral, so that again was only partly like, but it was, I remember, a curiously low roof. There was a sense of rather dramatic interest in the little girl which the story reproduces, and which is very rare in dreams, but I can remember no words to help it out. I think the child was 10, but the sense of premature cleverness and of surprise at myself in being interested in a child's talk about buildings is what remains with me. Miss Wedgwood adds : — The dream corresponded with her [Marian's] inaccurate recollection of the fiction more than with the fi.ction itself. She fancied that the incident was supposed to occur as in my dream — a grown person walking with a little girl in the street. It is one of several faint coincidences of the same kind, but most are so uninteresting that we forget them. Another little case of thought-reading between us may have interest for you. I should premise that M. H. is my most intimate friend as well as my maid — copies all my writings for me, and shares all my interests. In the year 1 880, I was troubled by some circumstances which I carefully concealed from her. I thought that some actions of mine might have caused annoyance to a friend long dead, if he h