they drift asunder, the sun's rays, hidden behind them, turn each silvery fold to a thousand opaline tints of rose, and pearl, and azure; and the blue sky shines out with only a tender haze across it, and a deeper turquoise spreads and widens upon the bosom of the sea, and each little shallow pool and streamlet in all that broad expanse of shifting yellow sand glitters like a handful of diamonds cast down upon a bed of gold; and then out rides the sun himself, in all his genial majesty, gilding sea and shore, and grey rock and grassy bank, and sending one broad ray right down on Barberry's face, dazzling and glorifying her like a benediction.

She can see its reflection in Randal's face, as he kneels beside her, holding her to him with such a look of perfect, proud content and happiness as she has never seen there yet; and before that vision all thought of herself or of her own ugliness, which seemed so terrible awhile back to her foolish heart, fades utterly away, like the mists themselves before the sun.

As Edla von Freilo would say, there is no such word as ugliness in love; and there is nothing but love, love grateful and triumphant, in Randal's eyes as he gazes at her.

The sunshine has come to both of them.

22 SAY, I never told you how the doctor got into disgrace with the mayor and town council. Ha ha ha! Here goes, for it was a rare bit of fun.

He was always inventing things, and the mayor and corporation believed in him, because it gave them jobs.

Our mayor was a timber merchant; so the proposal for a wooden pier was accepted; the pier was built, and washed away.

The doctor's idea for an esplanade was taken up because Councillor Prawnham owned the stone

He had seen asphalte paving in London, and seen it laid; so he came down red-hot, proposed a new pavement for our High Street of an asphalte of his own invention, and, as he artfully contrived a job out of it for the mayor and the whole town council, the plan was carried unanimously, and the next week the High Street became chaotic.

That street was in ruins for two months, during which it was picked up, rammed down, sifted, concreted, wetted, dried, smoothed, ironed, mangled, and then it was ready for Smallbois' patent hydro

It was a long name, and it took a long time to lay it down.

There were ten great cauldrons in the High Street, and in these ten cauldrons so many black demons were always busy at work cooking Smallbois' patent hydro-carbo-galvanic-terro-ligno-adamanto unabrado bituminous - asphaltic pitch paving.

Great fires were always burning underneath, smoke rose in clouds, and the black demons kept slowly breaking up and putting in bits of something very nasty, which smelt nastier, and stirring it up with big spoons; and, when it was done, ladling it out like soup into big pots, which other men carried between them, and made a mess with in the road.

For they were just like so many dirty children making black puddings and mud pies in the gutters-pouring out the nasty stuff, and patting it down, and smoothing it, till the people in the town began to use naughty words; and the major went so far as to say that he wished the doctor were boiled in his patent hydro-carbo-galvanicterro-ligno - adamanto - unabrado - bituminous-asphaltic pitch.

The major did not die-choked by his own words-but there can be little doubt about his ultimate fate.

At last the street was declared paved, and the new paving was opened by the mayor and corporation, who walked over it in their long, fur-trimmed gowns, carrying wands, and preceded by the town crier and the beadle without his bell.

(Drawn by W. Ralston.)

carriages going to the Derby. After which the volunteer band played "God save the Queen," without the drum and trombone-for the drum had got the toothache, and the trombone, who was head porter at the railway station, couldn't get a half holiday on account of the influx of visitors who had come to see Smallbois' patent hydrocarbo-galvanic - terro - ligno- adamanto-unabradobituminous-asphaltic pitch paving.

While the weather remained cold, the doctor's paving did well enough; but in the spring it began to soften, and by the time summer came it was like dough, excepting that when it got hold of anything it held on like birdlime.

A man would attempt to walk across it, and would sink in; then he would find that he couldn't move either leg. Then he would cry for help, and somebody would push a plank out to him, and he would struggle out of his boots and walk ashore.

Our friend Grace Smallbois had a sad accident there, for she came to grief going across. People warned her that it wasn't safe; but she wouldn't believe it, and went laughing across to try-for if you tell a woman a thing is not safe she's sure to want to try it.

Well, she hadn't taken four steps before she squeaked, and then she squalled, for her high heels had stuck fast, and her tight dress so hampered her that she went down backwards, sank in, and lay there calling for help, like a bas-relief come to life on a black marble temple.

Of course, all the young fellows came to help her, but how to get her out they didn't know.

It was all easy enough as far as her head, for she'd got on a fashionable waterproof, and they only had to unbutton it, and rip up her boots; but then there was her hair.

Now, if Grace had made an affidavit every day in the week that she did not wear false hair, no one would have believed her; but when they came to get her out of the asphalte, there was the test. It was, alas! real as real, and they had to take scissors and cut it all close to her head before they could get her free; and when they did, Grace was a sight.

There were twenty-four young men affectionate to Grace before that accident, and they all laid their hearts upon the altar of her love; but after Grace had been carried home cropped, there were twentyfour young men who weren't in love with Grace, and they all cried off.

There was a row that night, and the whole street was alarmed; for these twenty-four men all went to the new paving, armed each with a pair of scissors, to get a bit of Grace's hair as a token of their blighted love, and they all got stuck fast, and fought with their scissors till the fire brigade came, and began to play upon them, when they gave it up, and laid backs, when number twenty-four walked out of his boots and over the other fellows' backs to shore; number twenty-three walked out of his boots and over the other fellows' backs to shore; then number twenty-two had his turn, and twenty-one, and twenty, right down to number one; so that all lives were saved.

Old Mother Dibble's donkey tried to cross it one day, and was captured tight as wax, by the legs.

I was sorry for that ass, for he was such an intelligent beast. No one could get to him to feed him; so, being of an enterprising disposition he set to and licked the asphalte.

By-and-by he found out that there was no nutriment to be got out of it, any more than by chewing india-rubber, so he began to sound his trumpet, shouting wild, and ending in a regular jackass bray.

Next day he took to making signals with his ears; for he was there still, and he couldn't walk out of his shoes, as they were nailed on. He evidently knew the telegraph code, for he'd shove one ear forward, and the other backward, and then both forward; and end by sticking them straight out sidewise, which, according to the major's book of Military Code Signals, Vol. IV., chapter 27, page 92, signifies, "Now then arn't you going to hitch a fellow out?"

But no help came; so he rested his ears, and took to signalling with his tail-wonderful !

That tail stood right out, straight up, sidewise, t'other sidewise, angle of 224, perpendicular, slant

ingdicular, horizontal, duplex, vertical, very tickle, much more ticklish, jewelled in four holes, every position you could name; and no help came.

Last of all, his signals got so plain that they launched the lifeboat, and it stuck fast; while no sooner did they lower their oars, and try to get her along, than they stuck too, so the crew very wisely came out.

Then, as the signals for help went on, they brought out the rocket apparatus, and fired lines over his back; but of course they were no use to a donkey who couldn't even kick. They couldn't dig him out, so they put up a crane, and a man swinging in the air reached the animal and fixed the rope round under his forelegs. Then they hoisted him, and the donkey rose with a thick rope of pitch hanging from each leg, so that by the time he was forty feet up he looked like a giraffe with an extraordinary tendency to grow in the legs. Then the tackle slipped, and the asphalte was so elastic that the donkey flew back into the old place with a "chock." But they got him out at last-without his hoofs.

The way the cats stuck in that asphalte was something awful, and the noise worse. For no sooner was a cat fast by its paws than-bow-wow at it went a dog, and he became fast too; then they went on talking to one another till they were smothered, which wasn't very soon. Ever so many cats and dogs were caught and they perished, stuck by their feet; so that after a while the whole street was filled with boots, legs and cat skeletons and such rubbish, sticking upon the surface, until it looked like a jungle.

One hot day a boy, running after his top, fell on the pavement, face downwards, and was clutched fast. They saved him by cutting his clothing open in the back, and taking the boy out like a pea from the pod; but he left the tip of his nose in the pitch.

So there was a row, and then the authorities thought they would take the pavement up. It couldn't be cut or dug, so the workmen undertook to roll it over, as you would roll up a sheet of music; but when they had gone forty feet it sprung back over the men, and assumed its old shape, except that there were four lumps on the surface where the buried workmen lay. At last they hitched twenty or thirty horses to one end of the pavement, and hauled it away. Then they slid it into the river, and it floated down to sea, and lodged upon a shoal, and there it remained permanently. In the course of a year soil formed on it, and it is now rather a handsome island; and it is valuable too.

No doubt some day it will be utilized by a mining company that wants to go into the business of getting out leather. There are veins of old boots in that island which would make the fortune of

“Arrah, Mrs. Moran, did yeh hear the news?" "Arrah, no!" sez I, “barrin' that Lanty Byrne's wife got a kitchen grate, no less! As av the harth that was good enough for thim that wint afore her wasn't good enough for her, but she must set up wid her high-falutin' ways!

"Throth, yer right there," says Mrs. McGurk; "but shure what cud yeh expect from the likes av her? She was only a sarvint girl in Dublin, an' what cud she know about the ways av a dacint farmer's house? Why, she's always slashin' whitewash roun' the kitchen-an' the sorra worse thing she cud do, for there's nothing wholesomer nor sut; an' shure it's no wondher she lost her fine bhoy last Chrisamas, for she used t' wash him iviry mornin' in the big washin' tub."

"Och!" sez I, "maybe she'll do betther afther a bit; but what's yer news, Mrs. McGurk?"

"It's a grate day intirely for us," sez she. "Shure Brian's such a janius that Father Pat sez we must sind him t' college, and make a man av him!"

"Throth, I'm proud for yeh, Mrs. McGurk,” sez I; "an' whin did Father Pat say it?"

"A'yistherda'," sez she, "he kem down quite promis-cuous like, an' sez he t' me, 'Mrs. McGurk,' sez he, I'm afeard Brian's too grate a janius intirely t' be a priest's boy.' 'It 'ud ill become the likes o' me t' say conthrairy t' yer rivirence,' sez I, 'an' I hope Brian is plazin' yer rivirence.' 'Yis,' sez he, 'he's well enough; he minds his consthruin'whativir that is-'an' he's mindin' his book grand, but he's not mindin' my bisness. I sint him to Bob Connor's for me boots th' other day, an' there I was waitin' for thim, mortial onaisy, for I was goin' to christen a child for Mrs. Joyce, whin I seen Brian comin' along quite an' aisy, readin' an ould newspaper, but the sorra pair o' boots wid him. I threw up the windy,' sez Father Pat, 'an' schreeched out t' him for the boots. Well, he looked at me as if he was shot; an', what d'ye think, but the omadhaun was readin' the paper the boots was rowled in, an' he let them slip out an' nivir heeded thim. To be shure, Brian wint back, but one boot was soakin' in a ditch, an' Peggy Brien's childher tied a string t' the other, an' filled it wid mud, an' med a cart av it. Troth,' sed his rivirence, I was that wild that I was near makin' Brian ait them, heeltaps an' all!' An' shure, Mrs.

"Thrue for yeh, Mrs. McGurk," sez I, “an' is that why ye're goin' t' sind him t' collidge ?"

"No, agra, no!" sez Mrs. McGurk; an' wid that she pulled a lot o' papers out av her back pocket. "But see thim. That's poethry Brian med, an' it's all about the ould churchyard, an' the crosses, an' the say-gulls, an' Miss Grace. Father Pat sez it's grand, an' he showed it t' the masther up at the big house, an' he's goin' to give somethin' a'tost payin' for Brian's eddication. But shure Brian's comin' in this evenin', so yeh must come an' hear him readin' thim.”

Well, av coorse it was only nathral I'd like to hear what Brian wrote, an' I wint home wid Mrs. McGurk, an' she med a flour-cake, an' as the banes was plinty, she med some beautyful sthilk* too ; throth, there was lashin's an' lavin's, for the McGurks was always free-handed people. But yeh nivir saw anythin' like the grandeur o' Brian! He had a bran new shoot av black clothes an' a shirt as white as the dhriven snow!

"Go manee Dia in sho!"+ sez he, comin' in an' takin' aff his hat, quite the gintleman.

"Amin!" sez I, for his mother was tyin' up th ass at the back o' the house. "Good luck t'ye, Brian."

"Thank yeh kindly, Mrs. Moran," sez he, "the same t' you."

Afther the aitin was over, Mrs. McGurk axed Brian t' give us a sketch av the poethry, an' for two full hours he rowled it out av him as 'cute as a stone furlin' down a hill. But, saints above us! yeh nivir heerd sich nonsense! He sed in wan part that the waves down at Kilscadden Bay was like big white horses, and that he was dhressed up in fancy—in fancy, mind yeh, whatever soart av a coat that is-an' was ridin' an thim! An' wan av the ballads was called "The Laygind av Kilscadden," where the poor foolish crathur sed that he was in the churchyard wan day, an' he seen a whole lot o' ghosts, an' they towld him a whole lot av stories about the ould towers and the crasses, an' he med poethry out o' what they sed. But it was all sinse to what he sed about Miss Grace! 'Pon me conscience, av he called her a divil wanst, he did it a hundherd times! First she was a divil an the mountains, thin she was a divil an the say, an', behold yeh! thin she was a divil up in the trees, an' whisperin' t' him!

A dish composed of beans and potatoes mashed together. +"God save all here!"