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bed of clouds. A death-like silence was reigning around us. The very noise and hum of the great city seemed to have stopped—or, at least, we did not hear it. Could the world have stopped in its rotation, and the hand of Time have arrested itself in its dismal march?
"I remember languidly wishing that my life could pass away in that placidly dull and dreamy state, so like a mesmeric trance, when the benumbed body is thrown into a death-like torpor, and the mind,
'Like an ember among fallen ashes,'
is just wakeful enough to feel the consciousness of ease and of peaceful rest.
"All at once we were roused from our pleasant somnolence by the jarring sound of an electric bell.
"Teleny jumped up, hastened to wrap himself in a dressing-gown, and to attend to the summons. A few moments afterwards he came back with a telegram in his hand.
"'What is it?' I asked.
"'A message from ,' he replied, looking
