“Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

Her husband turned on his pillow and looked at her. She was asleep, and the smiles that played over her features, now and again interrupted by a look of gentle sadness, showed that she was dreaming. He was about to wake her, but he hesitated to break in upon what he knew must be a very sweet vision, and, keeping his eyes upon her face, he awaited the end.

They had been married two years. He had come suddenly into her life, taking her away from several admirers and out of a continuous round of pleasure and excitement, and after a short courtship they had wed. Parilee often said to herself: “How much better off I am,” and thought with satisfaction that instead of being a silly and superficial girl she was a wife, and at the head of a home. There had been hardly a discord in their lives since the day of their union; and Parilee believed she was quite happy.

As she lay there, her lips moved in the words, “I love you,” and her face flushed so deeply that her husband, doubting his eyes, speculated as to whether she was really asleep.

As the early light of the sun burst into the room, she started up, thinking, “What a dream for me!”

At her old home she had wandered along by the creek which ran through her father’s fields. She had been in quest of something, but what that something was she did not know; there was a longing and a longing, very deep and sad. Suddenly she had seen Tom Harding coming toward her. Taking him by the hand, she had led him to a large rock near, and they had both sat down upon it. Then, in a trembling voice she had said: “Tom, I’ve been seeking you such a long time; I love you.”

Looking at her searchingly and with tenderness, Tom had replied, oh, so softly; “You love me! I have long loved you, too”; and had taken her in his arms and kissed her.

“What were you dreaming about?” her husband asked, as she stirred and opened her eyes; “I saw you smiling in your sleep.” She did not answer, but went over her dream again and again, recalling every minute detail. Sweeter sensations never lingered after a real kiss. She revelled in memory as she looked out on the morning sky and thought of Tom’s embrace.

“Were you dreaming of me, Parilee?”

She hesitated, thinking: “I can’t tell him of my dream; it was not such a thing as a wife would want to repeat to her husband. Perhaps I ought to tell him, though. No, it will not be best; he would be displeased. I would better let him think that his surmise is correct than to make him sad or jealous. Besides, I am not responsible for what happens in my sleep. If the dream had included a thought or recognition of Harry, I should think that I was harboring improper feelings. But it was only a dream.”“Yes, Harry, I was dreaming of our old lover days.”

When her husband started for his office he gave Parilee his accustomed farewell kiss. To him it was the same as usual, but to her it seemed slightly insipid; the dream kiss was still upon her lips.

“It is because we have been married so long; I have grown used to him,” she reasoned when left alone. “I love Harry, and always shall.” Then she sat down by the window, looked far away into space, and went over the dream again.

“I wonder where Tom is now,” she questioned in her thought. “Probably married by this time.” A disagreeable feeling went to her heart. “He loved me before I met Harry. What changes time brings.” And she mused on.

Olga Arnold.