Quicker yet the dance proceeds,

Till the warmed and sinking maid Whispers faintly, that she needs Support of arm, and lemonade. Beauty, prone to negus ever,

Takes the glass, but coyly sips,
Pearly cliffs in rosebuds sever,
Then meet dewy, laughing lips.

Thus the fire congenial dances,
Darting flame-enamoured glances,
Curling, licking, brawling, flickering,
Gassy quarrels, crackling, bickering,
Up the wreaths of smoke ascending,
Ball-room thoughts and visions ending.
Heap more coals on, ply the poker,
Send the shovel forth as stoker.

Stir the Fourth.

Ah, me! what pen may paint the gloom
Of student in his lonely room?
Every spark in latent ember,
Watching in this drear December;
Crouching o'er the unswept grate,
On which no household angels wait;
Wrinkled chin on palm reposing,
Dreamy eyes o'er cinders dozing,
Bygone hopes of youth recounting,
To a total sad amounting;

Thoughts of love that once were spoken,
Vows of faith that time has broken,
Youth lured on by proud ambition,
Manhood hastening towards perdition,

Fevered nights and wasted hours,
Scattered dreams and fading powers,
Towering resolutions stunted,

High resolves and purpose blunted;
Visions of the past returning,

Clothed in colours like to mourning,
These the glimmering fire evoking,
Make us deem it wanted poking.

There!

Stir the Fifth.

Behold a blaze has risen, Mirrored in the human frame, Starting from its shiny prison

Into free and joyous flame.

Hark! No more in durance cruel,
There's music in that crackling fuel!
Sunny pictures rise unbidden,

Once in crumbling ashes hidden,

Pictures, which, though cinders stencil,
Might be fresh from Callcott's pencil.
Gaze beneath that centre bar,
See, where mountains rise afar,
Beetling o'er a fiery lake,
Which for Tartarus we take.
Blackened forests, castled turrets,
Fit abode for knights, or spirits,
Groves of stranger firs assist a
Line of rocks to form a vista,

Down which worlds of coal are blazing,
Till the eyeball aches with gazing.

Taking now a wider range,

Be the flickering landscape scanned,

Plains and vineyards, bays and ocean, Ever glowing in the light

Of deepening sunset, still in motion, Tides of fire which dim the sight. There's Vesuvius! Etna yonder, Pouring forth their floods of flame, Lava burying, as we ponder,

Towns that all from ashes came. Crash!

A continent hath vanished, Fate all human pride thus humbles, A coal is from its fellows banished,

And into dust Italia tumbles ! Still round our hearth, at Fancy's will,

These Fireside Visions cluster still.

ST. ANN'S CROSS.

BY F. W. LEITH-ADAMS;

Author of "My Indian Hero," "Your Cousin Frank," etc.

W

CHAPTER I.

A STRANGE DIARY.

HEN a person is about to relate anything extraordinary, he is bound in this unbelieving generation, to give proof of all his statements. He must be a respectable character, he must be thoroughly au fait with his dates and ages; he must lay down as truth no word that cannot endure the most powerful microscope that his judges bring to bear on it. Now I, in my humble sphere of life, consider that I can fulfil all these requirements; but yet, impartial reader, I have a duty that presses and compels a necessary silence on some points. Therefore you must, perforce, agree with me, that though I myself am willing, and do give every particular that can possibly further our object in arriving at an explanation of what I am about to tell you, yet I am compelled to conceal the names of those worthy people who are the dramatis persone of my tale.

Let us commence at once, and I will strive by my candour to gain your confidence. I am a gentleman; I mean, that as far up as my great-grandfather on both sides, I am irreproachable; but further than that I cannot vouch for, not knowing. Of my character I can only say that I am intensely fond of science and literature in any form and shape; yet, I hope, one who values religion as our highest good, and

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best guide. Of the amount of brains appertaining to me, my intellectual career. must speak. I have been Third in the Classical Tripos at Cambridge; First Class in the Mathematical; was educated at Shrewsbury and St. John's, and ordained a priest of the Church of England in 1870.

Continuing my confessions, I must admit to being a man of some private means, and in the matter of "views," more intent upon being loyal to the simple teaching of my Church, than wishful to range myself under the party-name of High, Broad, or Low. It was my wish, as a young man, to have entered some crowded London par‍sh, but my health forbade this; hence it come about that I accepted the office of curate in a small out-of-the-way village among the Cumberland hills.

Having now laid down the prologue of my play, I will proceed to put before you the scenes thereof. One word more.

I do not enter into a discussion as to the theories my story involves ; I take up no high-flown pen to garnish or to hide; but simply narrate facts. I thought it necessary before I began to tell you my achievements as a scholar, so that you might not think that you were listening to a prejudiced or superstitious "parson," who abhorred intellectual progress in any form, and was narrow enough to consider science as a natural foe to religion.

But let me not wander from my subject into arguments which have nothing to do with it; rather let me take you in spirit with me, as I travel in the atrociously slow train that drags its Parliamentary steps towards W

rain beyond.

whilst I ruefully look from the window out into the

storm of rain and sleet of a
Then, too, there was such a

I do not believe I am by nature a discontented individual, but the prospect of driving twelve miles in the November night was far from pleasant. charming haziness as to my getting any conveyance at all, for the Reverend Charles Drake, my Rector, is as poor as a church mouse, and in all probability owns no other conveyance than the family perambulator. Altogether I was not badly pleased when I discovered that a vehicle, half gig, half cart, had been sent for me, and that it