noon
`` I did not feel as though I dared to speak to him ; but at last he spoke to me , and his voice was as soft as a flute , and he said , ` All the roses on earth fade and wither , but nothing fades or withers in the happy place where I now live ; and oh , do not be anxious to possess the withering , fading flowers , but walk on the road that leads to my happy home , where everything is bright for ever and ever . ' `` Aggie , Aggie , '' said James Courtenay , who saw his nurse 's anxious face , and that she was about to stop his speaking any more , `` it is no use to try to stop my telling you all about it . My head has been so strange of late , that I forget everything , and I am afraid of forgetting this dream ; so I must tell it now , and you are to write it down , that I may have it to read , if it should slip out of my mind . Jacob Dobbin said , -- ` You are not now in the right road ; but ask Jesus to pardon your sins , and then go and love everybody just as Jesus loved you ; and try to make every one happy , and do good morning , noon , and night , and try to scatter some flowers of happiness in every place to which you go ; and then you shall be with me in the land where all is bright . ' And I thought Jacob pulled the one moss-rose , and gave it to me , and said , ` This is an earthly rose ; keep it as long and as carefully as you will , it will fade at last ; but our flowers never fade : try , O try , to come to them . ' I heard music , Aggie , or something like music , or perhaps like a stream flowing along , and I felt something like the summer breeze upon my cheeks , and Jacob was gone , and there I stood with the rose in my hand . `` Write it down , Aggie , '' said the invalid , `` exactly as I have told you ; '' and having said this , James Courtenay dropped off into a doze again .