new boat-hook, little bowl.

- indeed to make a new vessel of the brave

"I'm afeard," says Cap'n Ambuster, "that, when I git a harnsome new skiff, I shall want a harnsome new steamboat, and then the boat will go to cruisin' round for a harnsome new Cap'n."

And now for the end of this story.

Healthy love-stories always end in happy marriages.

So ends this story, begun as to its love portion by the little romance of a tumble, and continued by the bigger romance of a rescue.

Of course there were incidents enough to fill a volume, obstacles enough to fill a volume, and development of character enough to fill a tome thick as "Webster's Unabridged," before the happy end of the beginning of the Wade-Damer joint history.

But we can safely take for granted that, the lover being true and manly, and the lady true and womanly, and both possessed of the high moral qualities necessary to artistic skating, they will go on understanding each other better, until they are as one as two can be.

Masculine reader, attend to the moral of this tale :—

Skate well, be a hero, bravely deserve the fair, prove your deserts by your deeds, find your "perfect woman nobly planned to warm, to comfort, and command," catch her when found, and you are Blest.

Reader of the gentler sex, likewise attend:—

All the essential blessings of life accompany a true heart and a good complexion. Skate vigorously; then your heart will beat true, your cheeks will bloom, your appointed lover will see your beautiful soul shining through your beautiful face, he will tell you so, and after sufficient circumlocution he will Pop, you will accept, and your lives will glide sweetly as skating on virgin ice to silver music.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.

By D. G. ROSSETTI.

HE blessed Damozel leaned out

THE

From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes knew more of rest and shade Than waters stilled at even;

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem.
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
For service meetly worn;
And her hair lying down her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years,

Yet now, and in this place,

Surely she leaned o'er me her hair

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;

By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun ;

So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and blackness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

She scarcely heard her sweet new friends:

Playing at holy games,

Softly they spake among themselves

Their virginal chaste names; And the souls, mounting up to God, Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed above the vast
Waste sea of worlds that swarm;
Until her bosom must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven, she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce

Its path; and now she spoke, as when

The stars sung in their spheres.

The sun was gone now.

The curled m don

Was like a little feather

Fluttering far down the gulf. And now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sung together.

"I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come," she said.
"Have I not prayed in Heaven?

Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?

on earth,

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light,

And we will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps are stirred continually

And see our old prayers, granted, melt

Each like a little cloud.

"We two will lie i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree,

Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,

While

every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His Name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,

The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,

And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."

(Ah sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,

Strove not her accents there

Fain to be hearkened?

When those bella

Possessed the midday air,

Was she not stepping to my side
Down all the trembling stair?)

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves Where the Lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies, Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret, and Rosalys.

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;

Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

“He shall fear, haply, and be dumb; Then I will lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak;
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.