Agencies have been established in New York and other cities, under the supervision of Mr. Stern, and the favor with which they have been received has settled the fact that the wines of California are a success.  It only remains for the vintners to keep their wines pure, and always up to the highest standard, and to take such measures as shall insure their delivery in a like condition to the consumers, to build up a business which shall eclipse that of any of the great houses of Europe.  Thus will the State and nation be benefited, by keeping at home the money which we annually pay for wine to foreign countries, and the people will be led away from the use of strong, fiery drinks, to accept instead the light wines of their native land.

* * * * *

TO A YOUNG GIRL DYING: 

WITH A GIFT OF FRESH PALM-LEAVES.

This is Palm-Sunday:  mindful of the day, I bring palm-branches, found upon my way:  But these will wither; thine shall never die,—­ The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky!  Dear little saint, though but a child in years, Older in wisdom than my gray compeers! We doubt and tremble,—­we with ’bated breath Talk of this mystery of life and death:  Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe!

    Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home,
    Gentle white palmer, never more to roam! 
    Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go’st,
    Thy benediction,—­for my love thou know’st! 
    We, too, are pilgrims, travelling towards the shrine: 
    Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine!

* * * * *

THE RIM.

PART I.

There are women at whom, after the first meeting, you forget to glance a second time, they seem to be such indifferent creations, such imperfect sketches of an idea to be fulfilled farther on in a clearer type, but who, met once more and yet again, suddenly take you captive in bonds.  You find the sallow cheek to be but polished ivory, the heavy eye loaded with fire, the irregular features chords of a harmony whose whole is perfect; you find that this is the type itself; while in every gesture, every word, every look, the soul is shed abroad, and the fascination is what neither Campaspe, nor Jocasta, nor even Aspasia herself held in fee.  For you, she has blossomed into the one beauty of the world; you hear her, and the Sirens sing in vain; she touches you, and makes you the slave beneath her feet.

Such a one was Eloise Changarnier.

There was iron of the old Huguenot blood in her veins; late American admixture had shot a racy sparkle through it; convent-care from her tenth to her sixteenth year had softened and toned the whole into a warm, generous life; and underneath all there slumbered that one atom of integral individuality that was nothing at all but a spark:  as yet, its fire had never flashed; if it ever should do so, one might be safe in prophesying a strange wayward blaze.