"How, mamma ?" struck with the sweet grave tones. "Why, when the trouble comes that it doesn't last, and that some surprise of light and gladness lies just beyond the darkness, as the warm blue sky and the sunbeams break suddenly out of the thick rolls of cloud. It is always best when we are in trouble to remember this, and to say to ourselves, 'I don't feel very well now, but I shall before long. Something good is certainly coming to me." " "Is it really so, mamma? Oh, I just wish I had thought of that when I stood moping there by the window!" "Well, my child, you will have plenty of times to think of it through all the life that is comingtimes of darkness and sorrow-but remember that the trouble will not always last, and that, in one way or another, the path out of darkness will open, and the new light and comfort will come to you. For "God is God, my darling, Of night as well as of day; And we feel and know that we can go Wherever he leads the way." "Oh, dear mamma, what a pretty verse that is! I will try and remember Shady Pond,' when the next trouble comes to me.” Just then there was a rumbling of wheels outside, and a carriage dashed up to the gate, and a gentleman in the prime of life-a tall finelooking man, with a few stray threads of silver in his dark hair and beard-rushed up to the house, and bounded into the sitting-room, with a slight knock, like one who, certain of a welcome, need not stand on ceremony. "How are you, sister Jane? Oh, oh, my little magpie !" all in a breath. "Oh, uncle Edward, I'm glad to see you!" and Stella was in his arms, and gathered up to the great warm heart next moment. A LEGEND FOR CHRISTMAS TIMES. BY A. B. R. Ring! Tug! Strain! put out your force make your sinews crack with the fibry twists of the old bell-rope: ha! a merry peal! Send it forth yet clearer-yet louder-yet quicker! Swing, men, like bounding balls, to the ends of the switching, jerking ropes! Hark to the tumult in the belfry; every inch of metal is thrilling, quivering; little bells and big bells are leaping and whirling like mad things; sending forth further and further, and quicker and quicker, the rattling clang of their merriment. Keep them to it, men! No flinching; never mind stiff arms and aching legs to-morrow. Tell the world that it is Christmas Eve. Shout it into the world's ear. Make it hear; make it acknowledge the tidings. Ha! a yet merrier peal. No rest now, not a moment's. But by-and-by-Home-where the fire is leaping and roaring as merrily as the bells, and where the steam of Christmas fare is rich and luscious; where games are going on, and laughter and long stories, and kissing under the mistletoe all that will come in good time. But now the bells! the bells! There, a lusty pull! Ha! ten yards up the steeple you would be deafened. To it again! Many a mile off is that peal heard ringing and jangling through the frosty air. To it again! Ye are not ringing alone. The old tower is not chiming a solo when other old towers are mute. Not a bit of it. It is but one in the concert of the bells. In every steeple, in every tower throughout the land are ropes jerking, and bells swinging, and a rattling chorus pealing aloft. Make your bells then give jolly tongue. None of your tinklings. A clang-a roaring, brazen clang, thundering from dancing bellmetal, from iron tongues wagging faster than women's. Hush! well! that was a volley of sound. Again, and louder too, and clearer! The very stones are quivering; the old stones, hewn by the chisels of the Saxons; the vast oaken beams are trembling like willow wands. Hurra! the very birds are frightened amongst the ivy, and cower and shiver as at an earthquake. Ring then stoutly-merrily! Greet Christmas! The wolves howl at midnight; they pay a sort of beastly worship to the lone hour. It is their carnival, and when midnight comes upon wild deserts, and lonely woods, and snowy defiles where wolves are, there ascends to the heavens their long echoing howl; sometimes loudly heard by shuddering travellers, ringing in the quiet silence of the night, sometimes blending with the upraised voices of the waters and the winds. But midnight is not everywhere at once. Round spins the earth on its whirling axis; and the solemn hour-most sombre of the fourand twenty sisters, walks around the globe, from land to land, from continent to continent; and, as she passes she hears the wolves sending up their accustomed cry. Across the wildernesses of Asia and America, from the banks of one great ocean to those of another goes the cry; loud when midnight passes over the land. From east to west it echoes; travelling over mountain-chains and unknown woods. As it dies away in one kingdom it rises in the next. From river to river, from hill to hill, it journeys on; forests and ravines pass it from one to another. It is as if one huge ghostly wolf were the attendant of midnight, and with her passed over the globe, raising in every savage place its cry to proclaim the advent of its mistress. And so doth Christmas come-jolly Christmas! But merry bells herald him-not wolfish howlings. In how many lands is he thus welcomed? The swift earth whirls, the hours move in their endless procession; and, as the Christmas hour comes by, the bells lift up their voices. All over Europe rides the brazen welcome. From city to city, from village to village ascend the notes that tell of Christmas coming. A skirting river stays the dominion of a language; and a narrow sea, or even an imaginary line, tells the frontiers of its neighbour's power; but bells ring a common tongue. No need of interpreters for their pealing. Hark to the summons telling people to rejoice and be glad in the coming mirthful time; it approaches from the east and goes to the west. It passes over kingdoms and islands. It is heard in due time by distant dwellers in colonies. Wherever civilisation exists the herald does not speak in vain. In fortified places, far away in India, bells ring, and soldiers think of home. Amid the cotton and the coffee groves of Southern America bells ring and planters think of home. In lonely islands in the sea, bells ring and settlers think of home. Even at the Antipodes bells ring and exiles and guilt-stained men think of home! Think of home! Ay, and of old, happy, innocent times. When that peal was rung from the church-tower of their native place; and when they listened gleefully, for they knew full well what was coming, and remembered a long stretch for children's memories-what happened last Christmas, and thought how vast a time had passed since then. Yes, Christmas bells do all this. To many there are sad tones in their merriment, but softly, sweetly, sad, awakening old feelings, old loves, old hopes, old memories; sad, but healthful to think on. Then ring, ring, I say! Christmas is at the gate, would ye be churlish in your welcome? Swell the uproarious clang echoing through the heavens as the hour advanceth; bear aloft the joyous burden of the sound till the thin air be musical; till every breeze come laden with the harmony; till the embracing, pervading atmo sphere be quivering with the notes of Christmas bells! There is a hall of the spirits of the seasons. There SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER, alternate reign. They sit upon four thrones, but the throne of each in turn is the highest ; they wield four sceptres, but the sceptre of each is in turn the most potent. The hall of the seasons is a silent shadowy place, but not dim or mournful, Who can tell its dimensions; they shift and change; or what are its walls or its roof; they shift and change also. It is an aerial, phantom place, indistinct to mortal eye, summoning up vague ideas, not to be grasped by mortal mind. And yet it seemeth when SPRING sitteth upon the high throne and smileth on her sisters, that the hall is most light, and the mind becomes more hopeful-Spring is busy on her throne. From out the shadowy halo which surrounds her go forth mysterious influences, subtle vivifying emanations, and lo! over the world the torpid earth revives, the deadlike roots and seeds feel the spell, and green fibres come forth from the cold earth and woo the sun! And the hall of the seasons is now brilliant with warm gushes of light, and round it are seen springing forth, self-forming from the shadowy expanse which stretches beyond it, all sorts of lovely, and pure, and good creations; things of animal life and vegetable life; a blended phantom picture of the annual reproduction of the animated things of our world; and, while the busy scene is weaving, there is renewed hope, and energy, and patience, for toil or suffering, springing from the mystic charms of Spring! But her reign is over, and lo! SUMMER is on the high throne. Bright, dazzlingly bright is now the hall. Full of strength and burning passion, and teeming fancies, and wishes, and desires, is now the queen. She inherits the fruits of her sister's labours. A sound-faint, but still to be heard, wavers in the hall. It is an echo from the world; an echo of abounding life and busy enjoyment; all creation is now thrilling with the most perfect existence, and not an insect flutters its wings in the sunbeam, but the tiny sound is blended in the low, but deep strain which proclaims Summer in the Hall of the Seasons! It is AUTUMN's turn! She assumes the high throne. The bright light dims, the busy hum waxes faint; the hall becomes more and more shadowy and undefined, and pale vapours circle round the drooping Queen. She weaveth not busy spells like Spring, nor nurseth great passions like Summer. She seemeth faint, yet not sickly; resting, but not idle. The low echo from the world becometh low apace, until it is heard no more. Nature is sinking asleep. Clouds close round the Queen of Autumn. And then cometh WINTER-a serene and majestic shadow. No smile is upon her lips, and her robes are dark and sombre. The hall is still more gloomy; cold clouds float in within its precincts, but rays of ruddier light than yet glanced through them, flicker on the features of the sisters. The Queen of Winter is sorrowful, for she hath seen her sister pine and fade away; she sits in gloom, but all at once a smile comes upon her dark face. For Autumn, from out her circlet of pale clouds, whispers that she is not dead, but resting, and joyous Spring saith that her sister speaketh true. A ruddier gleam of light than yet sparkled in the hall, gleams forth, and a low murmur floats by. Have the tinge of Christmas fires, and the hum of Christmas bells, in truth, reached the Hall of the Seasons? The Queen of Winter stretches forth her wand. Instant fly towards her joyous spirits, spirits of good wishes, and hopes, and thoughts. Winter has heard that Autumn is not dead; that Spring will again come, bringing with it cheerful hopes, happy visions, reviving aspirations. And shall not the world, too, hear the glad message; shall it not, too, be taught that the bright hour will always come again; that the ruling power is good, and that mutual wishes for happiness, and joyful recognitions of worth, and hearty vows of friendship, are pleasant to those who look down upon this sphere? Assuredly-Yes. So the Winter Queen again waves her wand, and away fly the good spirits on their good mission, to calm affliction, to prompt awakening, and to reward tried virtue and worth. And as they bend their rapid flight over the kingdoms of the earth they hear the sweet chiming of the bells. Some fly to lonely houses; some to ships at sea; some to populous cities. But, always mingling and making sweet har mony with the rustle of their wings, comes floating, in silver cadence-the pealing chimes of the Christmas bells! Then ring, my men, for Christmas. A hallowed sound is that of the Christmas chimes! plaintive. A boy and a girl are passing. The boy is a mere urchin; the girl who holds his hand is his sister, and ten years his senior. Are they passing along to a Christmas dinner? If so, hurry, hurry-shelter is pleasant to-night. Alas! no. No one has bid them to a feast, and they have not the means to provide one for themselves. Shelter! The street is almost as good as their fireless dwelling; walking, at all events, keeps the blood in circulation. But theirs was more a totter than a walk. Sometimes the girl leaned heavily upon her little brother for support, or stopped and supported herself against the area railings; then her brother looked up wistfully in her face. It was a poor, thin face-very thin, but still smiling, with a faint, tearful smile, and then again becoming as sweetly and placidly composed. There was little beauty of feature, perhaps; but oh, what their expression told! modesty, resignation, cheerful good-heartedness, beaming love for all things pure and good. But the death-light of hectic fever looked out from the eyes, and consumption was throned in that blood-red spot, seeming as though painted on the paper-white cheek. What a night for disease to be abroad in! The girl was thinly clad, too; the worn, threadbare shawl, closely drawn round her, showed the emaciation of her form, and she shivered violently, for the soaking snow was fast oozing through her worn-out shoes. The boy was as poorly clad; but there was neatness in the poverty-touching neatness. A faded handkerchief was tastily tied round his neck, and, as he held his sister's hand, he tried to chafe and warm her long, thin, trembling fingers. "Do you think, Emmy, we shall get that oneand-sixpence to-night? I am so hungry." Oh, yes, dear; yes. Are you very hungry, Charley ?" "Oh, yes-no. If we don't get it, you know, we can't help it. I must wait.' "Oh, God! oh, God!" exclaimed the girl, "for a loaf of bread!" The mighty heart of London beat to its core with the warm tide of Christmas feeling. Its pouring swarms greeted each other merrily in the streets. Snug parties assembled in warm And as she spoke the clang of a merry chime chambers. Hardy evergreens-the flowers of came ringing through the snow, and a burst of winter--clustered from ceilings and over win-light gleamed ruddily from a warm parlour opdows, mocking, with their rich warm green, the cold white of falling snow. Christmas-eve came on. A biting frost had prevailed during the day, but with the evening there was a change. A feathery fall of snowflakes lighted silently on the city. In the great thoroughfares the snow was speedily trampled into slushy mud, churned by thousands of paddling feet. In more unfrequented places in haughty, silent, west-end squares and terraces-it yet lay whitening the flag-stones; the traces of a stray passenger, marked in brown footmarks, upon the pavement, like the print in the sand which terrified Robinson Crusoe. To such a street the legend proceeds. There are footsteps on the pavement, and voices. You can hardly hear the former, for they are light, and the snow is too wet to crackle under foot; but the latter are shrill and posite. 66 Emmy, Emmy, don't talk so; we—we'll have better times, we will. I am sorry I said that I was hungry; only you know it is Christmas time, and I thought of the old dinners at grandfather's." The girl suddenly stopped, and looked steadfastly on her brother. Drawing him to herself, she said, slowly and solemnly: 66 Charley, what will you do when I am gone?" The boy looked curiously into his sister's face. "When I die, Charley?" she added. His lips moved, and then, bursting into a passion of tears, he hid his face in his sister's bosom, and cried violently. She bent over him, and put her thin arms round his neck, and they remained motionless. And all the while the snow was falling, and the merry Christmas bells were ringing. 66 Emmy," said the child, "why do you speak so? You don't mean it." The girl shook her head, and drew her brother still closer to her. "Yes! What are you thinking of, that you look so grave?" "Of the poor girl who wasted her strength for three days, to make a dress sufficiently gay "You are worn out, sister, and tired and for a gay dinner-party. Three days', probably nervous. You worked so hard-oh! so hard-three nights' toil. How should you like that, all last summer, and all through the autumn and the winter, and never went out because you had a cough; and you said you were afraid. And then you lived so hard-only bread, and not enough of that; for you always made me take my share, and most of your own, too. And then, sister, you did not go to bed for the last three nights, but worked so hard to finish the flowers for the lady's dress. Oh! I saw you, when you thought that I was sleeping, crying over the satin you were embroidering; and so you are worn out; and that makes you think of such things. Is it not that? Do, tell me, sister Emmy!" It was a child who thus spoke, but a child of poverty and hardship; and such have no childhood. Theirs is a melancholy precocity. Their situation makes them calculate and think. A great man has remarked, that at an age when the child of the rich man cares for nothing but a gaudy toy, the child of the poor thinks of household management, and the prices of what it eats, and by what it is warmed. Most melancholy! but most true! "Why did you not let me go alone for the money, sister? I am old enough to go through the streets alone; and you should have tried to get some sleep." "It is too cold to sleep," she replied, shivering. "Come, Charley, come." But her poor limbs, frozen and cramped, tottered under her. She grew sick and faint, and leaned heavily on her brother. The sentence was drowned by the rattle of a carriage Down it came, whirling along the street; its lamps gleaming through the falling snow like fiery eyes, and the champing and snorting of the horses almost drowning the rattle of their trappings. Within the carriage, reclining in all the luxuriance of velvet and silk, which yielded to the slightest motion of the figure, like masses of eider-down, sat a lady and a gentleman. She was young and beautiful, her fair forehead crowned with diamonds; and the slim outline of her form set off robes rich with the skill of embroidery, and gorgeous with satin and lace. She turned affectionately to her husband, who sat beside her 66 George," she said, "I do long for the light; you have not seen my dress yet.' "Indeed, but I have, vain one," he replied in a tone of fond reproach. "Impossible, or you would have praised it more. The embroidery is so beautiful, so very beautiful; and it was done by one person in three days. I could not have believed it, but my maid said it was true. I should have thought it a week's very, very hard work." "But it was done in three days." Adeline, yourself?" first: The husband spoke "Here we are at his lordship's. Be gay, and look your best. Do justice to my choice, Adeline," he said fondly. She tapped him on the cheek, laughed, the little cloud passed away, she was as radiant in her smiles as ever. A sudden drawing up, a swing of the coach upon ite springs, the thundering echoes of a footman's rap, the blaze of lights as the wide portals were thrown open by liveried lacqueys, and Lady Adeline stepped lightly from the carriage. Emma and her brother were close to her. The exhausted girl was only prevented from falling by the nearly-as-wearied child; but as the brilliant form of the lady, visible in the stream of light from the open doorway, met her eye, she murmured in Charley's ear: "The embroidery! there is the dress I embroidered." The boy turned quickly round to look, and for a moment withdrawing his support in the action, his fainting sister sunk heavily to the earth, and lay outstretched upon the snowy pavement. An exclamation from the boy, a faint shriek of horror from Lady Adeline as she stood upon the doorway, and then with instinctive feeling turned and stooped to raise the poor embroideress, and then the voice of her husband: "The poor girl has fainted. Hush! I will take care of her. Go in, dearest Adeline; you will catch cold. There, away!" These sounds lasted but for a moment; they passed like a dream, and the next moment the Lady Adeline stood the centre of a gorgeous group of ladies; while soft music murmured, and bright lights flashed around. It was a high banquet; rich were the wines and meats, soft the music, and brilliant the wit which sparkled around. But the Lady Adeline heeded not such attractions; she was wrapt and silent. The image of the fainting girl and the snowy night rose in her soul, and the festive scene around became dim and indistinct, for she | heroic fortitude rising in the spirit as energy looked at it through tears. She longed for silence, for solitude, for self-communion; and seizing the first opportunity of withdrawing, she escaped from the brilliant circle, and threw herself upon a couch-to think. waned in the body; a glance, a look which spoke of sufferings endured, of duty accomplished, and of purity preserved through all. And let such a seal be impressed on human face, and oh! how vain become the triumphs Every object of luxury, every refinement of of art; how puerile the mere harmony of feaart surrounded her. She gazed upon the beau-ture, the mere wavy grace of outline! Then it tiful in every shape. All that could tempt the eye, that could delight the touch, that could excite, and, at the same time, satisfy the imagination were there. She gazed upon them all, and thought of the snowy pavement, the ill-clad girl, and her terrified brother; and all the time the chime of bells from distant steeples came faintly and subdued upon the ear. is beauty and grandeur of soul, not of form, we have to do with. There must Art stop, and reverently incline; for, when such an image is traced, its sculptor is its God! The form of the girl stood before the lady. It bent its eyes sadly, but not reproachfully, upon her. How thin were these poor cheeks! How white and worn and wasted the taper fingers clasped upon the bosom! As the lady gazed, everything around her, except that one figure, appeared to become dim and confused, and gradually to disappear in vacancy-till all was dark and troubled, save the moveless phantom statue. At length it, too, moved; and, as it waved its thin arms on high, a voice rose up in the lady's soal-a voice solemn and harmonious; it was not heard, but felt; and it stirred the very depths of her being. Who shall say that there is not a subtle, good-working influence in Christmas time? That good spirits may not then exult, and bad spirits shrink before its power? Come all ye sprites of good thoughts, and hopes, and wishes despatched by the Winter Queen, in her great joy when her sister Autumn whisprered, "I am not dead!" and her sister Spring, "I shall again reign!"-to your mission all the world over; lurk in secret corners of hearts; dive deep into souls; help the good germ to expand; Look, and listen, and learn," said the voice. make manifest all the pure, and bright, and The girl moved her arms, and beckoned. exalted longings, and tendencies, and aspira-Soon emerging from the vacant darkness, came tions, enshrined in our humanity! The eyes of the Lady Adeline rested upon a statue which stood beside the couch whereon she lay. It was a priceless gem of Grecian art. It might have represented the household divinity of an Athenian poet; and for centuries it had been enshrined in the marble halls of an Italian merchant prince. The serene purity and bright majesty of the ancient art were testified in its faultless outline. The sculptor, burning with the sunny poetry of his land, had conjured it into deathless marble. The lady looked long and eagerly on the Greek-created figure; but yet, ever and anon, were its proportions hidden by a shadowy vision which rose between. There was the worn shawl instead of the antique robe, the faded bonnet instead of the antique head-dress; and, most wonderful change still, the meek, careworn, pallid face, instead of the severely grand classic countenance. Lady Adeline was loath to break the spell, and banish the vision; she gave herself up to its influence, and lo! the marble statue seemed to melt away, and in its place stood the image of the dying girl she had seen stretched upon the pavement. gliding shadowy troops of girls like her who called them. Pale, and wan, and worn ghosts they were. The merriness of youth was quenched upon their features; their faces were young, but their looks were old. They wore no ghostly drapery, no white winding-sheets : their raiment was that of life, such as is seen in streets and chambers, and this made their corpse-faces still more ghastly. And the silent troop of ghosts glided round the chamber, and formed an awful circle about the lady. She gazed in awe and terror; but, like their leader, their looks were sad, but not wicked. Some were there with fair forms, bent and crooked by long and unnatural hours of work; others moved gropingly, for their bright eyes were quenched for ever, and their sight wrested from them by weary nightly vigils. All were shrunk and emaciated, as though they had been born and reared in dark dungeon places. No stamp of health, no trace of embrowning sunbeam, or fresh, renovating breeze, was upon their faces; but, written on all-not in human, but in nature's characters-was the legend-"Victims to Vanity." And the voice again spoke in Lady Adeline's "Woman, behold your sisters-flesh of your flesh, and blood of your blood-see what you, and such as you, make them!" The lady groaned in very anguish of soul. She would have spoken. Oh! most poetic, most noble was the chi-heartselled marble, and high the thoughts of him who framed it. Witching was its influence-a spell to bend the soul to Art-worship. The very chasteness of poetry pervaded it, the dignity of purity, the ideal of grace. In the figure which took its place, that ideal was wanting. Features and outline were no longer faultless; but at the moment when they became so, features and outline sunk into insignificance. Expression, then, wrought the charm; resignation, meek hope, yearning love; the stamp of a most "Hush! said the voice: "I know what you would say: yet, again behold!" The darkness which shrouded in the scene opened: the phantom groups separated, and flew right and left, and the lady looked wistfully upon a dim, troubled light, which shone before |