Yet holds him waiting, listening so.

"Tong-ko-lin-sing!"

"Why all this trouble for a woman?" he asked, gravely. "Women are plenty, for to become one is a future punishment of ours for sin when men. I have seen her with you; she wore the tiger's-claw jewelry you got through me. Like most American women she would not make a 'mother of Meng,' our wise woman, who has passed into a proverb. Then she wore black, which is ill luck for body and

mind."

Nothing could have better set off Elinor's golden hair and fresh daisy-bloom than the soft laces and black velvet she had so often worn beside me at concert or play. I could almost see her again with me at the thought. I drew a deep sigh. "Where is Si-ki?" I cried, making a vain clutch at Tong-ko-lin-sing's sleeve. But the others had turned back for me, and my Chinese teacher's jacket and cap of black astrakhan fur soon melted into the darkness of some too near alley. Had he followed us all day from mere curiosity, or could he help us? We went to his door, but knocked in vain, though we all saw a line of light under his door as we went up-stairs, not there when we came down. Disheartened, we went home. Elinor had not changed. We could not try to sleep, but sat in my room.

"I wish," said Brande, "you looked as full of life and joy as you did the last time I saw you come home with Miss Elinor."

"O Noel!" I cried, "if I could but live over that last happy day, when to see her by me was thrilling as music, when to breathe the same air was exciting as wine!"

"Like Socrates under the plane-tree," he mused, "borne away by a divine impression coming from this lovely place.""

"Yes," I said; "life was all changed, my soul was no more pent by bodily bounds, my eyes saw everything by an inner light which made all fair."

"That reminds me," said he, "of some verses about the picture over Miss Elinor's piano."

He searched his note-book, found, and read:

AN INTERLUDE.

Tall candles and a wood-fire's fitful burning

Seem like a spell to conjure from the wall One picture's living eyes, which, though returning To shadows that engulph, hold me in thrall.

Against the wall a sad musician leaning

Across the strings has lain caressing bow,

As if of life so near, yet far on-flowing,

Some consciousness had thrilled and made him know And long to step into the circle, showing Such charmed one within the hearth-fire's glow. My life, like his, is picturesque, transcendin What can be felt, or heard, or seen, except When passing flashes of emotion, lending Some added senses, over me have swept, More sad, more glad, and more enchantingAnd my existence may to angels seem Like that of phantom through dim vapors flaunting, For ever near some vague, elusive dream. Perchance they mark me pause and look and listen, In some bright moment's exaltation brief, As if, though circling shadows oft imprison, My music waits but for a turning leaf!

"Spirits in prison,"" said I; "where do you think they go when first set free?—to another world, or to the dearest friend in this?"

"That would depend," he answered, "upon the kind of spirit that goes. One like Miss Elinor now-" "Do not speak of her death;" I cried; "though I have thought before that you did not like her."

"No," said he, “I do not, but with no reason. It is a mere feeling that repels, and did at first sight, lovely as she is. I need not speak of her death to say that her spirit is one that would--"

I started. Elinor had come in at the door behind him, and stood looking at me, making a sign of caution as if she did not wish Brande to know of her presence. What had brought her to my room? She looked very shadowy in sweeping, misty robes and floating hair. Perhaps she was not in her right mind. sorely vexed to have Brande see her come to me. I had even wild thoughts of blindfolding him, while she should have time to flee.

I was

"What is it?" he asked. "You look as if you saw a ghost."

"Nothing," I faltered. While I wondered what was best to do, she looked anxiously at me, and made motions toward Brande as if I meant to do him mortal harm, as if warning me back from a crime. Such strange movements perplexed me, so that, seeing my absorbed gaze, Brande looked behind him.

"What do you see?" he cried, as he turned, and to my horror added, "there is nothing here!"

Had he gone mad or had I?

"Don't you see her?" I gasped, hardly able to get on my feet, for a sinking at my heart seemed to root me to my chair.

"You can find him. You must hunt for him," I persisted.

It was like talking to a blank wall. He was unmoved except to ask,

"The lady?”

"Is dead. I must find Si-ki.”

Quite shocked that I should be so straightforward, he said, "She has ascended to the skies?"

I nodded impatiently.

heard with a start. He wavered and urged me to give up the search. I would not. He set off a new way, and soon darted into an alley full of the grimy, blackened buildings which can never be used after the Chinese have lived in them, whose dark horrors recalled some scene elsewhere known-in what past age? I saw round me only the signs of a civilization older than the Pharaohs. I heard the twang and squeak of rude instruments, which, two thousand years

I told him. I piled a small heap of gold and silver on the table under his eyes.

He spoke in high praise of her faith, but added,

"Religions are many. Reason is one. We are all brothers."

While speaking, he put the money out of sight, hung up the bird-cage, and opened his door.

We searched parts of Chinatown which would have been barred to me without a Chinese comrade; underground depths like the abysses after death, upper stories and roofs of buildings that towered in air as if striving for space to breathe, narrow, crooked alleys where loungers talked across from windows about the American straying there, and seemed to think I was led by Tong-ko-lin-sing because in some way his prisoner. He offered odd trifles from the depths of his sleeves, in small pawn-shops, which held queer gatherings-pistols of all styles, daggers, even the fan-stiletto, clothes, beds and bedding, tea, sugar, clocks, china, and ornaments. He called on large warehouses where the heads of great firms met us; and behind huge jars the size of men, wrought silk screens, giant kites, odd baskets, and gay china, but not beyond the queer foreign scent of such stores, we were given rare tea in tiny cups holding no more than our dessert-spoons. He drew me through wood-yards and vegetable gardens, and over fish-dryer's sheds. All knew and looked up to Tong-ko-lin-sing as one who knew the written language, but could not help him. He went to the Six Companies, but neither the Ning Yang, which owns the most men in San Francisco, nor the Sam Yup, which sends the most men to other States; neither the Hop Wo, nor the Kong Chow, nor the other two, nor the great washhouse company could or would tell us anything. One after another he asked the throng of small, curb-stone dealers, the pipe-cleaners, cigaretterollers, vegetable or sweetmeat venders, and cobblers, even the gutter-snipes.

At last, the cobbler who always sits on the south side of Clay Street, just below Dupont, told him something which I did not catch, but he

violin) was heard in Italy, played in balmy teagardens these same old songs of love, difficulty, and despair. Here crowded the strange buildings, here crouched the quaint shadows of an Oriental city, known to me-when? where? in some dark-hued picture?

As Tong-ko-lin-sing started down some break-neck steps, I stopped a moment for breath, and looked around me. A street-lamp lighted a Chinese poster close by me, a signed and sealed notice from the Chin Mook Sow society, offering a thousand dollars, not for the taking of two offenders, but for their assassination! I shuddered and crawled down the narrow, shaky stairs. On the last landing from which I could see the narrow strip of sky, I looked up. Two great golden planets watched me. I groaned and went on. I felt the crooks of this under-world soon shut all out like a coffin-lid. My love was dead. My friend was murdered. I cursed aloud. I followed Tongko-lin-sing only by the strained tension of my nerves, through which I saw him in the dark as plain as if by light, and heard him muttering in Chinese, monotonous as the shrilling of the wind far overhead. He went in at a doorthrough a long passage that had a strange smell that made me feel faint, a smell of death -till, after a moment's pause as if to make sure he was right, and giving me a warning touch, he opened a door into a dimly lighted den, while the sickening scent grew worse.

"Si-ki!" he called.

What was this ghostly form, white as a skeleton, which slowly glimmered through the gloom before my amazed eyes? Dizzy from the fetid scent, yet held by my horror as by transfixing spear, with failing heart and quaking limbs, I saw the ghastly figure cross the rotten, slimy floor toward us.

"My dream! My dream!" I murmured as I clung to Tong-ko-lin-sing for support.

An awful voice, discordant as a Chinese gong, the hollow voice of a leper, a voice unearthly as if we had been shades met in another world, cried,

"Between us two! Between us two!” EMMA FRANCES DAWSON.

THE first ship ever built in California was the work of Father Juan Ugarte. This was in 1719, at the darkest period of the Jesuit colonization of the peninsula, when the supplies which had hitherto supported the Missions had been cut off, and the missionaries found themselves obliged to rely upon their own resources.

Father Juan Ugarte was, in his humble way, one of the great men of his age. He was not only one of the founders of California, but he was that one of them who first established agriculture and manufactures in the country. It was under his direction and fostering care that the first fields were planted, the first orchards set out, the first vines grown, and the first grapes pressed. He was also the first to bring over cattle and flocks from Mexico, and subsequently-after he had got his fields and orchards and vineyards to growing and flourishing-to set up spinning-wheels and looms; so that within less than a decade of years, although compelled to depend entirely upon itself, the colonization of California was self-sustaining, and all owing to the extraordinary exertions and the wonderful practical ability of this one man. If the great man be he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before; if, as we are now beginning to be made to believe, the greatest man be he who most successfully cultivates the arts of peace-then must the name of Juan Ugarte be rescued from the comparative oblivion in which it has been allowed to sink, and advanced high on the roll of human excellence.

The circumstances under which this first Californian ship was built, and the uses to which it was applied, as well as the character of its builder, render it one of the most interesting structures of which our early history treats. As before stated, it was in 1719, when all hopes of further support from Spain and Mexico for the Jesuit colonization of California had been abandoned, and the missionaries were left to depend upon themselves alone. At that period they had but a single ship, and that a very small one, which had been tossed about for years, and was strained and wrenched in almost every joint. All the others had been cast away in the waters of the tempestuous Gulf, and destroyed. Several attempts had been made to repair old wrecks, and one new vessel had been tacked together on the opposite shore

of Sinaloa; but none of these proved of any utility: every one in a short time went to pieces, and there was nothing left to keep up communication, and, in case of danger, to carry the colonists to a place of safety, but the one crazy little transport referred to, which was liable to split with every shock and sink in the first gale. Under these circumstances, a ship of some kind, well built and reliable, was a necessity; and the only way to procure it, after so many fruitless trials, seemed to be-and, in fact, as it afterward turned out, proved to be-to build it in California, where the laying of every plank, and the driving of every spike, could be superintended by some one who was interested in seeing the work well and faithfully done. So thought Father Ugarte, and no sooner had he formed the thought than he set about carrying it into execution.

Ugarte was not a ship-builder, but rither had he been an agriculturist or a manufacturer. He was, however, one of those practical geniuses to whom all occupations seem subservient, and to whom nothing that seems indispensable is impossible. He was at this time engaged in missionary labor at Loreto, on the Gulf shore of the peninsula, in the midst of one of the most rocky, sterile, treeless tracts of country in all America. Upon looking around him, he found neither timber nor trees suitable for timber, nor iron, nor sails, nor tar, nor other necessary materials; nor were there shipwrights, sawyers, or carpenters, nor even any surplus of provisions for such persons, had they been present. To any other man these obstacles would have proved insurmountable. But, upon making inquiries, Ugarte was informed by the Indians that in the mountains, about two hundred miles to the northwest of Loreto, there were large and straight trees which might possibly serve his purpose; and distant as they were, uncertain as the result might turn out, and difficult as the way was sure to prove, he at once determined to go thither, and see for himself whether they would answer, and, if so, whether they could be brought to the seacoast. Accordingly, procuring the attendance of a shipwright from across the Gulf, and taking along two soldiers, and several natives as guides, he proceeded to scramble over the craggy mountains of Guadalupe for the forests of which he had been informed. After a long