Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/155

 night and that I breathed with a wheezing sound, so she made me take a cup of tea before going to bed. It was very good and sweet, of pansies and orange leaves—she said—but I was not to mention it to the other boys who would be jealous. I kept taking it for several nights, but whether it was my cold, or the sultry hot days, the more I slept, the more drowsy I grew.

At last—about a fortnight afterwards—having got sick of my tisane and being sure I had neither a cold nor a cough any more, I—the matron not mounting guard—instead of drinking it and having it pass through my body into the vessel where it was destined to go, I deftly poured it into the night-vase at once.

I went off to sleep, but I did not fall into that lethargy of the evening before. In the middle of the night I had a peculiar dream. I was on board of a ship and the matron was with me, but I do not exactly know whether we were in bed or not. All at once the waves began to roll high and dash against the bow of the vessel, that was labouring to