THE TWO DREAMS. 117

conscience by postponing all reflection, he
undressed himself, and stepped into bed.

But the night began with an evil omen.
His head had scarcely touched his pillow,
before he bounded out again with a cry
of astonishment, that startled, and almost
frightened his companions. ‘ What is it,
Harry?” “Is it a pin? ora needle? or
a rat?” cried two or three voices at once.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mertoun, throwing back
the bed-clothes as he spoke, “what shall
I do? there is a cherry-stone in the mid-
dle of my bed.”

The tone in which these words were
uttered, appeared so ludicrously dispro-
portioned to the cause which elicited
them, that they provoked a smile, even
from the quiet Warbeck,-while the more
mercurial spirits received them with shouts
of laughter. Seymour, in particular, who