She partially rose from the sofa, and clasped hold of him in her emotion. "Oh, Archibald! Archibald!" she uttered, "don't marry her! I could not rest in my grave."

Mr. Carlyle, in his puzzled astonishment, believed her to be laboring under some temporary hallucination, the result of weakness. He set himself to soothe her, but it seemed that she could not be soothed. She burst into a storm of tears and began again--wild words.

"She would ill-treat my child; she would draw your love from it, and from my memory. Archibald, you must not marry her!"

"You must be speaking from the influence of a dream, Isabel," he soothingly said; "you have been asleep and are not yet awake. Be still, and recollection will return to you. There, love; rest upon me."

"To think of her as your wife brings pain enough to kill me," she continued to reiterate. "Promise me that you will not marry her; Archibald, promise it!"

"I will promise you anything in reason," he replied, bewildered with her words, "but I do not know what you mean. There is no possibility of my marrying any one, Isabel; you are my wife."

"But if I die? I may--you know I may; and many think I shall--do not let her usurp my place."

"Indeed she shall not--whoever you may be talking of. What have you been dreaming? Who is it that has been troubling your mind?"

(Editor：person)