A DRIFT-WOOD FIRE
AN ARTIST'S CREATION
IN A WHERRY
MADAM DELIA'S EXPECTATIONS
SUNSHINE AND PETRARCH
A SHADOW
FOOTPATHS


OLDPORT DAYS.


OLDPORT IN WINTER.

Our August life rushes by, in Oldport, as if we were all shot
from the mouth of a cannon, and were endeavoring to exchange
visiting-cards on the way. But in September, when the great
hotels are closed, and the bronze dogs that guarded the portals
of the Ocean House are collected sadly in the music pavilion,
nose to nose; when the last four-in-hand has departed, and a man
may drive a solitary horse on the avenue without a pang,--then we
know that "the season" is over. Winter is yet several months
away,--months of the most delicious autumn weather that the
American climate holds. But to the human bird of passage all that
is not summer is winter; and those who seek Oldport most eagerly
for two months are often those who regard it as uninhabitable for
the other ten.

The Persian poet Saadi says that in a certain region of Armenia,
where he travelled, people never died the natural death. But once