WINTER.

When from the skies, that wintry gloom enshroud,
The blossoms fall and flutter round my head,
Methinks the Spring even now his light must shed
O'er heavenly lands that lie beyond the clouds.

THE HEATHEN CHINEE.

BY BRET HARTE.

[FRANCIS BRET HARTE, one of the most popular of American authors, was born at Albany, N.Y., August 25, 1839. His father was a teacher in a female seminary, who died leaving his family with but little means.

The son, after an ordinary school education, went to California (1854), and was successively miner, school-teacher, compositor, and editorial writer for San Francisco journals. He was secretary of the United States branch mint in San Francisco (1864–1870), and in 1868 founded and edited the Overland Monthly, to which he contributed some of his most powerful stories of Western life, such as "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," "Miggles," and "Tennessee's Partner." Returning to the East in 1871, he took up his residence in New York and became a regular contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. He was appointed United States consul at Crefeld, Germany (1878), whence he was transferred in 1880 to Glasgow, Scotland, and continued in that office until 1885. . Since then he has resided in London. Besides the works above mentioned he has written: "Tales of the Argonauts," "Gabriel Conroy," "In the Carquinez Woods," "Snowbound at Eagles," "A Millionaire of Rough and Ready," "Crusade of the Excelsior," "Susy," "Clarence," "In a Hollow of the Hills," "Three Partners."]

(Table Mountain, 1870.)

WHICH I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,-
That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;

And I shall not deny

In regard to the same

What that name might imply,

But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand,

But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, In the game he "did not understand."

And we found on his nails, which were taper,

What is frequent in tapers,

Which is why I remark,

that's wax.

And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.

GAMBLER'S LUCK.

BY E. T. W. HOFFMANN.

[ERNST THEODOR WILHELM HOFFMANN, German novelist, composer, and miscellaneous writer, was a native of Königsberg, Prussia, being born January 24, 1776. He held several judicial appointments in Posen and Warsaw until the French invasion, when he was deprived of office. Thrown upon his own resources, he led a precarious existence as composer, author, and musical director at Bamberg and other places. In 1815 he resumed his career in the Prussian service, and held the post of councilor of the supreme court in Berlin until his death, June 25, 1822. His works include: "Phantasy Pieces," "The Elixir of the Devil," "Night Pieces,' ,""Kater Murr," etc. The opera "Undine " is the best of his musical works.]

PYRMONT had a larger concourse of visitors than ever in the summer of 18-. The number of rich and illustrious strangers increased from day to day, greatly exciting the zeal of speculators of all kinds. Hence it was also that the owners of the faro bank took care to pile up their glittering gold in bigger heaps, in order that this, the bait of the noblest game, which they, like good skilled hunters, knew how to decoy, might preserve its efficacy.

Who does not know how fascinating an excitement gambling is, particularly at watering places, during the season, where every visitor, having laid aside his ordinary habits and course of life, deliberately gives himself up to leisure and ease and exhilarating enjoyment? Then gambling becomes an irresistible attraction. People who at other times never touch a card are to be seen amongst the most eager players; and besides, it is the fashion, especially in higher circles, for every one to visit the bank in the evening and lose a little money at play.

The only person who appeared not to heed this irresistible attraction, and this injunction of fashion, was a young German Baron, whom we will call Siegfried. When everybody else hurried off to the playhouse, and he was deprived of all means and all prospect of the intellectual conversation he loved, he preferred either to give reins to the flights of his fancy in solitary walks or to stay in his own room and take up a book, or even indulge in poetic attempts, in writing, himself.

As Siegfried was young, independent, rich, of noble appearance and pleasing disposition, it could not fail but that he was highly esteemed and loved, and that he had the most decisive good fortune with the fair sex. And in everything that he took up or turned his attention to, there seemed to be a singularly lucky star presiding over his actions. Rumor spoke of many extraordinary love intrigues which had been forced upon him, and out of which, however ruinous they would in all likelihood have been for many other young men, he escaped with incredible ease and success. But whenever the conversation turned upon him and his good fortune, the old gentlemen of his acquaintance were especially fond of relating a story about a watch which had happened in the days of his early youth. For it chanced once that Siegfried, while still under his guardian's care, had quite unexpectedly found himself so straitened for money on a journey that he was absolutely obliged to sell his gold watch, which was set with brilliants, merely in order to get on his way. He had made up his mind that he would have to throw away his valuable watch for an old song; but as there happened to be in the hotel where he had put up a young prince who was just in want of such an ornament, the Baron actually received for it more than it was really worth. More than a year passed and Siegfried had become his own master, when he read in the newspapers in another place that a watch was to be made the subject of a lottery. He took a ticket which cost a mere trifle, and won the same gold watch set with brilliants which he had sold. Not long afterwards he exchanged this watch for a valuable ring. He held office for a short time under the Prince of G-, and when he retired. from his post the Prince presented to him as a mark of his good will the very identical gold watch set with brilliants as before, together with a costly chain.

From this story they passed to Siegfried's obstinacy in never on any account touching a card; why, with his strongly

pronounced good luck he had all the more inducement to play; and they were unanimous in coming to the conclusion that the Baron, notwithstanding all his other conspicuous good qualities, was a miserly fellow, far too careful and far too stingy to expose himself to the smallest possible loss. That the Baron's conduct was in every particular the direct contrary of that of an avaricious man had no weight with them; and as is so often the case, when the majority have set their hearts upon tagging a questioning "but" on to the good name of a talented man, and are determined to find this "but " at any cost, even though it should be in their own imagination, so in the present case the sneering allusion to Siegfried's aversion to play afforded them infinite satisfaction.

Siegfried was not long in learning what was being said about him; and since, generous and liberal as he was, there was nothing he hated and detested more than miserliness, he made up his mind to put his traducers to shame by ransoming himself from this foul aspersion at the cost of a couple of hundred louis d'or, or even more if need be, however much disgusted he might feel at gambling. He presented himself at the faro bank with the deliberate intention of losing the large sum which he had put in his pocket; but in play also the good luck which stood by him in everything he undertook did not prove unfaithful. Every card he chose won. The cabalistic calculations of seasoned old players were shivered to atoms against the Baron's play. No matter whether he changed his cards or continued to stake on the same one, it was all the same he was always a winner. In the Baron they had the singular spectacle of a punter at variance with himself because the cards fell favorable for him; and notwithstanding that the explanation of his behavior was pretty patent, yet people looked at each other significantly and gave utterance in no ambiguous terms to the opinion that the Baron, carried along by his penchant for the marvelous, might eventually become insane, for any player who could be dismayed at his run of luck must surely be insane.

The very fact of having won a considerable sum of money made it obligatory upon the Baron to go on playing until he should have carried out his original purpose; for in all probability his large win would be followed by a still larger loss. But people's expectations were not in the remotest degree realized, for the Baron's striking good luck continued to attend him.