March 18th. Thinking of Robert all day long. Does this mean
that he is really coming back? If it does, reckoning the distance
he is at from New York, and the time ships take to get to
England, I might see him by the end of April or the beginning of
May.
March 19th. I don't remember my mind running once on the end of
the cravat yesterday, and I am certain I never looked at it; yet
I had the strangest dream concerning it at night. I thought it
was lengthened into a long clew, like the silken thread that led
to Rosamond's Bower. I thought I took hold of it, and followed it
a little way, and then got frightened and tried to go back, but
found that I was obliged, in spite of myself, to go on. It led me
through a place like the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in an old
print I remember in my mother's copy of the Pilgrim's Progress. I
seemed to be months and months following it without any respite,
till at last it brought me, on a sudden, face to face with an
angel whose eyes were like Mary's. He said to me, "Go on, still;
the truth is at the end, waiting for you to find it." I burst out
crying, for the angel had Mary's voice as well as Mary's eyes,
and woke with my heart throbbing and my cheeks all wet. What is
the meaning of this? Is it always superstitious, I wonder, to
believe that dreams may come true?
* * * * * * *
April 30th.
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