with its alert feather, all drooping and draggled. Her fair hair and pure forehead are uncovered for an astonished sunbeam to alight upon. "It is my love, my life, Bill! Give way, once more!" "Way enough! Steady! Sit where you are, Bill, and trim boat, while I lift her out. We cannot risk capsizing." He raised her carefully, tenderly, with his strong arms. A bit of wood had buoyed her up for that last moment. It was a broken oar with a deep fresh gash in it. Wade knew his mark, the cut of his own skate-iron. This busy oar was still resolved to play its part in the drama. The round little skiff just bore the third person without sinking. Wade laid Mary Damer against the thwart. She would not let go her buoy. He unclasped her stiffened hands. This friendly touch found its way to her heart. She opened her eyes and knew him. "The ice shall not carry off her hat to frighten some mother, down stream," says Bill Tarbox, catching it. All these proceedings Cap'n Ambuster's spy-glass an nounced to Dunderbunk. 66 "They 're h'istin' her up. They've slumped her into the skiff. They're puttin' for shore. Hooray!" Pity a spy-glass cannot shoot cheers a mile and a half! Perry Purtett instantly led a stampede of half Dunderbunk along the railroad-track to learn who it was and all about it. All about it was that Miss Damer was safe, and not dangerously frozen, and that Wade and Tarbox had carried her up the hill to her mother at Peter Skerrett's. -- Missing the heroes in chief, Dunderbunk made a hero of Cap'n Ambuster's skiff. It was transported back on the shoulders of the crowd in triumphal procession. Perry Purtett carried round the hat for a contribution to new paint it, new rib it, new gunwale it, give it new sculls and a new boat-hook, —indeed to make a new vessel of the brave little bowl. "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 TH 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, Her seemed she scarce had been a day The wonder was not yet quite gone (To one, it is ten years of years, .. Yet now, and in this place, Surely she leaned o'er me - her hair Fell all about my face Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves. The whole year sets apace.) It was the rampart of God's house By God built over the sheer depth So high, that looking downward thence. It lies in Heaven, across the flood Beneath, the tides of day and night 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 From the fixed place of Heaven, she saw Its path; and now she spoke, as when The stars sung in their spheres. The sun was gone now. The curled moon Was like a little feather Fluttering far down the gulf. And now "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? "When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white, I'll take his hand and go with him And we will step down as to a stream, "We two will stand beside that shrine, "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 |