her maid, and dismissed her also. Then, tired as she was, she removed the candle from the dressing-table to a desk on the other side of the room, and seating herself at this desk unlocked it, and took from one of its inmost recesses the soiled pencil-scrawl which had been given her a week before by the man who tried to sell her a dog in Cockspur Street.

The diamond-bracelet, Archibald Floyd's birthday gift to his daughter, lay in its nest of satin and velvet upon Aurora's dressing-table. She took the morocco-case in her hand, looked for a few moments at the jewel, and then shut the lid of the little casket with a sharp metallic snap.

"The tears were in my father's eyes when he clasped the bracelet on my arm," she said, as she reseated herself at the desk.

see me now!"

"If he could

She wrapped the morocco case in a sheet of foolscap, secured the parcel in several places with red wax and a plain seal, and directed it thus:

"J. C.,

Care of Mr. Joseph Green,

Bell Inn,

Doncaster."

Early the next morning Miss Floyd drove her aunt and cousin into Croydon, and, leaving them at a Berlin-wool shop, went alone to the postoffice, where she registered and posted this valuable parcel.

London Poems.

VIII. CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY.

UPON thy raiment-skirts, O Night,
Shudders a radiance dimly bright;
And ere thou fliest a morning light
Makes cloudy phantoms of thy flight:

The ghost of Day, with cold caress,
Doth haunt thy tawny loveliness;
Thy silver stars grow less and less,
And drop like jewels from a dress;

The pale moon, brightening on thy stole,
Doth inward as an eyeball roll,-
Like a calm eye that seeks the scroll
Silence illumines in the soul.

Then, with a broad'ning purple glow,
The sun climbs hills to see thee go;
Thy white star sickens, and below
Lies nature trancèd in the snow.

Then sudden, while thy mists are shorn,

Unto the happy or forlorn

The bells ring in the Christmas morn: "This the day our Lord was born."

When sudden brightness floods the spires

Of the white city into fires,

And, dropping liquid through the quires, Fades on the tombstones of our sires;

And the great City travaileth

To hear what that sweet music saith,
And draweth in a morning breath
Of dreams from off the shores of death.

Then, flushed, it wakens, in a strain
Of music tingling down like rain,
As a wild sleeper starts in pain,
With thick pulsations in the brain.

Gather the small things round the fire,

And let them sport until they tire;
And let the mother and the sire,

Softly beholding them, aspire,

Ay, let the women and the men,
In mansion proud or narrow den,
Partake the children's joy, and then
Deem them the Christ-Child come again.

Then the sweet bells swim in to pale
Homes where the little children ail,
Where Hope and Joy themselves are frail,
Where fathers groan and mothers wail.

Then cry the bells, "This is the morn
That Pity very pure was born,—
To wipe the eyes of those forlorn,
To brighten doubt and soften scorn:

Suffer the little ones to go;
Forbid them not,-'tis better so;

For they, each Christmas morn below,
Shall come with raiments like the snow-

Fall like the snow, so soft, so fair,
It makes a moonlight in the air;
And dropping dimly, unaware,
Renders the spirit pure for prayer."

And Death, to whom the task is given,
Trances the mourner; while the shriven
Children forsake the poor bereaven,
To hold their Christmas-day in heaven.

The mourner weepeth in her place,
But Christmas prayer is on her face;
The poor take joy, the rich ask grace;
And still the sweet bells ring apace:

"Pile high the fire with log and thorn; Pluck the green holly this Christmas morn; Warm ye and fill ye, O forlorn:

This is the day that Love was born."

B.