and never in real life-isn't it? It was like getting out of the hot room into the cold in the Turkish baths. But there's the hall-door bell! She has come! Pray excuse me, Mr. Ashton, for a few moments."

And Mrs. Lorimer hastened from the room, leaving Robert to his own devices for the next quarter of an hour. At the expiration of that time the door opened softly, and Mrs. Lorimer re-entered, leading a graceful young lady attired in pure white, and holly-leaves and ivy twisted through her bright golden hair.

"I know you are prejudiced against my little heiress d'avance, Mr. Ashton," said Mrs. Lorimer, as she conducted the young lady to a table where Robert sat turning over the leaves of a carte-devisite album. "I am quite certain you will detest her, but you must strive and surmount the prejudice as well as you can, my dear boy, and do the agreeable, for she and I are your only companions this Christmas-eve."

Robert looked up in some surprise at this extraordinary introduction, and, to his profound astonishment, he beheld Lucy Hyde, all smiles and blushes, standing before him, just as he had seen her twelve months previously, only fresher looking and more blooming, if possible.

your

"I knew you would hate her," said Mrs. Lorimer, as she beheld his agitation. "You always did hate perfect women you know. Ah! I wish, you naughty boy, that you had taken my twenty to one, and I should have had a new dress for the wedding gratis," said that most incorrigible lady, with a joyous air. "I think mother won't object to your choice of a wife any more, Robert," she said by-and-by, when dinner was over, and he and Lucy were seated on the sofa in the bliss of mutual converse after so long and painful a separation. "And I think Christmas-eve will always be a memorable day to you two-one to be marked with a white stone after the antique fashion. So, my dear, let us all thank God at this happy season, of which I wish you many returns, as joyful as this one!"

Need I add that Robert and Lucy were married, and returned to that bleak Northumberland moorland which Lucy thought the dearest spot on earth. No, my sapient reader divines that finale himself. But there is one thing I might do, that is, write a third merry Christmas-eve for that day twelvemonth. Fanny Ashton and Captain Crowder were married, and the old drawing-room was decked once more by Lucy's nimble fingers, and the wax-lights flickered, and the band struck up Coote and Tinney, and Mrs. Lorimer's wish that every Christmas-eve might be equally joyful seemed in a fair way of realisation.

THE BELL-RINGER'S CARILLON TO THE NEW YEAR.

BY WILLIAM JONES.

Bid the merry bells ring to thy ear.-SHAKSPEARE.

RING out the Old Year,
Ring in the New One,
Ring out a merry chime,

A hearty and a true one!

With feet in step, and stout arms ready,
Swell out the octave: steady, boys, steady!

Now, Will, you brawny blacksmith, whom labour only mellows,
Come work as at your anvil, the wind shall be your bellows;
And Hugh, the miller trusty, and Joe, the sexton, rusty,
With other jovial ringers give a pull both strong and lusty!
Take heed to time and compass in the music of the steeple,
And set the clappers hard at work to cheer all worthy people,
To tell them that another lease of time is on them dawning,
That they may greet right lovingly the blessed New Year's
Morning!

A grandsire bob and treble, a major and a royal,

Amaximus" to crown Old Time, to whom we should be loyal!

A round peal for the year gone by-a rounder for his brother, And may we all as faithful prove, as bells are to each other; They teach us how to keep in tune, good faith should be

unbroken,

And ev'ry frown melt into smiles, each rough thought be

unspoken.

That we should live in harmony, all deeds unfriendly scorning, Real precious metals, truth and love, should be our best adorning, That none reject a honest hand though horn'd and grimed with

labour,

But treat the man as Christians should, a brother and a

neighbour.

A grandsire bob and treble, a major and a royal,

A" maximus" to crown Old Time, to whom we should be loyal!

Let Pekin have its monster bell, and Moscow boast its giant,
We are, in English brazen throats, of all the world defiant,
For ages they have sounded out great deeds of fame and glory,
And 'tis a good old custom still, no worse for being hoary:

And, match me, brother ringers, the clappers ten of Leicester, That frightened storms and hags away, and battled many a

'wester;

Or the famous Kentish peal that took two dozen men to move it, Or Paul's great bell, that hates small beer, and turns it sour to prove it

A grandsire bob and treble, a major and a royal,

A “maximus” to crown Old Time, to whom we should be loyal!

And young great "Tom" of Lincoln, in his lofty belfry

swinging,

Beats his sire, renown'd in story, with his rich melodious

ringing,

While the "lady-bells" beside him, their silvery tones are blending,

A jubilee to greet the year, o'er hill and valley sending ; Huge "Tom" of Oxford's iron pulse moves with the same devotion,

And "York," colossal o'er them all, is stirred with merry motion, While "Bow," that warned the 'prentices of Cheape from brawl

and riot,

Now welcomes in the new-born year in days of grace and quiet! A grandsire bob and treble, a major and a royal,

A "maximus" to crown Old Time, to whom we should be loyal!

Now GLORIA IN EXCELSIS, be the key-note of our praises,
And next, his voice for "Queen and Home," each sturdy Briton
raises,

And may the year now ushered in, from ev'ry belfry tower,
Bring peace, good-will, and happy hearths, the source of
England's power!

May statecraft shape each devious end, and round it to a
blessing,

No social evils curse the land, no tyranny oppressing,

And may the cheering chimes we ring, wake echoes deep and tender,

From those who will no principle of truth and love surrender! A grandsire bob and treble, a major and a royal,

A "maximus" to crown Old Time, to whom we should be loyal!

Ring out the Old Year,
Ring in the New One!
Ring out a merry chime,
A hearty and a true one!

With feet in step, and stout arms ready
Swell out the octave: steady, boys, steady!

THE GOLDEN GATE.*

THE title of the present work is at least a taking one in these days, when the business of life centres in the acquisition of the favoured metals. The world would seem to wish to have implied as its chief glory that man was created to hunt for their possession, honestly or otherwise, as the chief end of his mortal existence. The brave clipper, its broad canvas shading the ocean, sets its head to the southward from England for the western United States; and rounding Cape Horn in about a hundred and twenty days, after running thirteen thousand five hundred miles arrives off the "Chrysopyle," or "Golden Gates," and enters, between towering rocks rising inland to mountains, the most magnificent harbour in the world.

This narrow entrance passed, and the rocks on which the sea breaks with tremendous fury in the calmest weather, the snowy spray dashing a hundred feet into the air, she swirls into the noble bay, which appears at once as soon as the entrance is passed, and in which are seen islands which rise two thousand feet in height, and, still further on, where the channel widens yet more, to quote the author, "the little island of Alcatraz, surmounted by a large building of red brick, with the flag of the Union waving over all. Fortifications of solid masonry defend this island, on the east of which and upon the southern shore the buildings of the city of San Francisco make their appearance. Arrived out of the strait into the wide and noble lake-like harbour, the vessel passes a long dilapidated pier, known as 'Meigg's Wharf,' on the north side of the city. She then rounds what is called Telegraph Hill,' and a little further southward anchors near a wharf on the east of San Francisco, as well as of the peninsula before noted as terminating at Fort Point, the outer side of which is exposed to the full fury of the Pacific' tempests, if it be not an Irishism to use such an expression."

The fair narrator proceeds with a description of this marvellous metropolis of an American state that, twenty years ago had not a thousand inhabitants, and now reckons one hundred and thirty thousand. It seems "that the principal part of the city faces the east. Opposite is a small town, on the other side of the bay, called Oakland-a very pleasand spot, with only a few houses yet built. The Americans, with a sort of passion for the 'grandific' in all relating to themselves, call it a city. The site is delightful

Five Years within the Golden Gate. By Isabella Saxon. Chapman and Hall.

compared with that of San Francisco, and many citizens reside there, crossing the harbour to their business and returning. The distance by a ferry is about seven miles. It is yet farther to the south that the bay attains its extreme width. The position of the city of San Francisco itself is well sheltered from the storms seaward, by a background of sandhills, which take a peninsular form, nor can any site be better adapted for maritime purposes."

The vicinity of the city is barren, standing upon hills over which the sands have drifted, but the vicinity a few miles distant has every charm of rural beauty that can be desired. Across the harbour, at Oakland, where some of the citizens go daily, returning by a steam-ferry, as just stated, the scenery is eminently rural and beautiful, while even into the Golden City itself the sands driven up by the cool wind that sets in from the sea early in the forenoon render the streets disagreeable, as well as the temperature chilly. The city itself is marked out into squares, and each square of building is called a "block." The streets are designated by their relation to these blocks. Thus, Montgomery-street is said to be three, five, two, or so many blocks from the shore; a very plain and clear designation, still the plan gives no room for the picturesque as regards appearance.

But to our tale. The fair voyager took up her quarters in one of the fine hotels with which the city offers no mean choice. All in America are fond of hotel domiciliation. The Cosmopolitan, the Occidental, the Sick House, the American Exchange, and the Tehema, with others, offer every species of accommodation from moderate to most "luxurious" prices. In fact, the wonderful rise of this city, which now numbers a hundred and thirty thousand souls, can hardly be recorded with any degree of patience by some of our cotemporaries, who hate the United States as well as freedom at home. None, indeed, can view with more jealousy, not even the haters of the "Britisher" in America, in their turn, the present situation and future prospects of the great western republic. For our part, we think the world wide enough for all, and rejoice to see the Anglo-Saxon race giving law and freedom to so much of it.

After noticing the duel in which a popular character among the inhabitants of the city fell, to the disgrace of modern manners, and alluding to the irregularities and strange scenes that occurred on the first rush to the regions of gold, now put an end to so effectually, that, as far as sight is concerned, no city is so well regulated, so that New York itself in comparison is a painful spectacle, the fair writer describes one of the early establishments which stood where the town hall is now situated, as she heard it detailed.

"There was once a house called El Dorado, occupying the place