ALICE'S DREAM

"Do you believe in dreams, Aunt Ella?"

"No, Alice, I do not."

"Not if they come true?"

"Only a coincidence. If they don't come true are you willing to acknowledge that all are unreliable? Or, if some prove true do you consider them all reliable? You can have either horn of the dilemma."

"What causes dreams, Aunt Ella?"

"Usually what's on your mind. Your brain doesn't wake up all at once and dreams flit through it until it gets full control."

"What if a person dreams the same thing three nights in succession?"

"That proves nothing. When my first husband died I dreamed for a month or more that he was still alive and that I must wake him at a certain time because the morning he died he was to take a train at an early hour. You make your own dreams."

"But supposing you see something in your dreams that you never saw before--that you never knew existed until you viewed it when asleep?"

"What have you been dreaming, Alice?"

"You won't laugh at me?"

"I promise not to laugh, but I won't promise to believe."

"If my husband is dead," said Alice, "he is dead and I shall never see him again in this world; if he is still living, he is somewhere in this world, and it's my duty to find him."

"I will agree to that," a.s.sented her hearer, "but you know that I have no faith that he is alive. Just think, twenty-three years have pa.s.sed away and you have had no word from him. Out of deference to your feelings, Alice, I had put off making my will since Sir Stuart died until yesterday. It is now signed and in my lawyer's hands. It is no secret, I have left all I possess to your son Quincy."

"Why did you do that?"

"I promised his father that he should have it, but as I think he will never come to claim it, I gave it to his son, as he or you would do if it was yours. Now, your dreams have put some idea into your head. Where do you think your husband is?"

"I don't know what country it is, but, in my dreams, thrice repeated, I have seen him standing in a grove of trees filled with fruit--lemons and oranges they appeared to be."

"Did he speak to you or you to him?"

"He looked at me but gave no sign of recognition. I called his name, but he did not answer me."

"That proves what I said. You are always thinking about him, and your mind made up your dream."

"Where do lemons and oranges grow?"

"In so many countries that you would have to go round the world to visit them all." She thought to herself, "they don't grow in the ocean."

"You speak of twenty-three years having pa.s.sed. That's not so long. I have read of sailors being away longer than that and finally returning home. Men have stayed in prison longer than that and have come out into the world again. Why, Quincy is only fifty-three now."

"And I'm seventy--an old woman some think me, and others call me so, but if I were sure that by living I could see Quincy again, I'd manage some way to keep alive until he came."

"You are just lovely, Aunt Ella, and I love you more than ever for those words. I believe that Quincy wants me to come to him--and I am going!"

"My dear Alice, I'm sure the only way you will ever see Quincy is by going to him, for he can never come to you."

The next day Alice spent in studying the cyclopedias and maps. She estimated the cost of a six months' trip to the citron groves of Europe and America. For a week she pondered over the matter.

Then something occurred that led her to make up her mind definitely. She had the same dream for the fourth time. She awoke screaming, and shaking with terror. Her aunt was awakened and ran to her room.

"What is it, Alice? Dreaming again?"

"Yes, the same and yet different. I saw a big man raise a club and strike Quincy on the head. He fell and I awoke."

Aunt Ella grew cynical. "Why didn't you wait long enough to see the effect of the blow?"

"Oh, Auntie," and Alice burst into tears. "What shall I do?"

"I know what I'm going to do. I shall send for Dr. Parshefield and have him give you a sleeping potion."

The next day Alice began making preparations for her journey. Aunt Ella's arguments and appeals were in vain.

"I must go," said Alice. "Where, I do not know, but G.o.d will direct me."

"G.o.d won't do anything of the kind," exclaimed Aunt Ella.

Her patience was exhausted. Then her manner changed. She accepted the inevitable, and did all she could to help her niece. One thing she insisted upon, and that was that Alice should have a companion. One who could speak French and German was found and Alice started upon her quest into, to her, unknown lands.

CHAPTER XXIII

"BY THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE"

Alice did not tell Aunt Ella where she was going. To have done so would have led her aunt to say that it was foolish to go there, for although she aided Alice in getting ready for her journey she was decidedly opposed to it. In fact, in her own mind she called it "a wild goose chase." But she had learned that Alice had an indomitable will and she fully realized that further argument and opposition were useless.

Alice went on board the boat at Dover with some foreboding. She had read and had been told of the rigours of the Channel pa.s.sage and her experience was equal to the descriptions. Had it not been for the presence of Babette, the maid so wisely provided by her aunt, her journey might have ended at Calais, or even before. She had a horror of the water and it was with a sense of great mental and physical satisfaction that her feet touched solid ground again.

They went to Paris, but spent no time in the gay city. Their objective point was the south of Italy, and then the island of Sicily. Did not the guide books say that Sicily was the home of the orange and the lemon?

They would stop a short time in each important town. Carriages were taken from day to day and inquiry was made at the princ.i.p.al groves in the near vicinity of the towns. Then trips were made into the country, but everywhere Alice's questions were answered in the negative. She was allowed to talk to the labourers, by the aid of an interpreter, but none had any remembrance or had heard of any such man as she described.

At only one grove, near Palermo, was she refused admittance. The proprietor, Silvio Matrosa, said he had no authority to admit strangers.

Besides, two of the men had been fighting and one was so seriously injured by a blow upon his head by a club, that he had been sent to the hospital and it was thought he would die. Under the circ.u.mstances "Would the ladies excuse him?" and Alice was obliged to give up her search in that direction.

She had been so impressed with the reality of her dreams that she had thought she could easily recognize her husband's surroundings, but she confessed to Babette, who was sympathetic and engaged eagerly in the search, that she had seen no place that resembled the scene of her dreams.

More weary wandering without result followed, and so intent was she on the object of her search that the beauties of "Sunny Italy" were lost upon her. The weather was hot and enervating and Babette suggested that her mistress should go to Switzerland and rest before continuing her search. Alice consented, but when they reached Vienna she was too ill to proceed farther. Babette was at home in Vienna for she could speak German, and she soon learned that the Hospital of St. Stephen's would give her mistress the rest and medical treatment that her condition required--for she was on the verge of nervous prostration. The discomfort of travelling was not the cause of her physical break-down for Aunt Ella had told her "that nothing was too good for a traveller"