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“ Love is better than bouse or lands; 
So, Sir Stephen, I’ll ride with thee ! ” 
Quick she steps where the courser stands, 
Light she springs to the saddle-tree. 
Love is better than kith or kin ; 
So close she clung and so close clasped he, 
They heard no sob of the bitter wind, 
Nor tho snow that shuddered along the lea. 
Love is better than life or breath! 
The drifts are over the horse’s knee; 
Softly they sink to the soft, cold death, 
And the snow-shroud folds them silently. 
Houses and lands are gone for aye, 
Kith and kin like the wild wind flee, 
Life and breath have fluttered away, 
But love hath blossomed eternally. 
CURIOSITIES OF LIFE IN CALIFORNIA. 
Just after welcoming the December number of the 
Cabinet an unusual sound muxs heard in our house — 
“ Snow, snow;’ - ' all eyes were directed to the window, 
and sure enough there was a snow storm. One mem¬ 
ber of the family ran to secure some; returning found 
it like many of our bright anticipations, tied, or rather 
changed ; the beautiful crystal could not bear the 
warm greeting. At the same time I was eating tigs 
gathered from the tree the day before. In less than 
an hour the same member who tried to gather the 
snow came rushing in with eyes extended, “Did you 
feel that?” The house was still vibrating. We had 
an earthquake. The doors and windows shook well, 
and a rocking-chair swayed as though in possession of 
some determined spirit. My first thought was, “I am 
glad it is not a tornado.” Our earthquakes are such 
small things beside those terrible storms of wind, that 
we think little of them. The earthquake did not 
make the commotion the snow did, as it was not such 
a novelty. We had seen this only twice in twelve 
years, except in the distance, and we had frequent 
shakes during that time. The snow continued less, 
than ten minutes, and settled down into a real winter 
rain. We had arranged a rockery, and I was wishing 
for rain to settle the stones and soil. I have very few 
plants for it, as tho frost is early and late here. Could 
you suggest some plants that would hear the frost ? 
I read in the Cabinet about taking the Four- 
o’clock and keeping it in the cellar. I was surprised, 
as I had only known it as an annual. Last spring, 
as we were preparing our new garden, some Four- 
o’clock came up. I supposed it was from seed 
dropped the previous year, hut when digging down 
we found roots more than fifteen inches around. This 
was new to me. 
California is a wonderful country for health, fruit, 
flowers, and vegetables. I suppose you often hear 
big stories about California.. Well, you may believe 
all you hear. I thought so when 1 looked at a heat 
weighing 82 pounds and a pumpkin 196, and the 
owner did not think them worth taking to the fair as 
he knew there would be some larger. 
I would like to know how to grow a small red 
bean called Black-eyed Susan ; does it grow in this 
country ? I am under the impression it is from some 
of the islands. I have soaked it in warm, hot, and 
cold water, kept it in moist earth, but nothing will 
induce it to sprout. 
My dining-room looks quite cheerful this winter ; 
there are two sunny windows, and I have Oxalis, 
Begonia, Violet, Narcissus, and Mignonette in bloom. 
They are pretty and fragrant. The vines are German 
Ivy, Ivy Geranium, Thunbergia, Maurandia, Morn¬ 
ing Glory, and Passion Vine, beside a number of 
trailing plants. A dwarf Calla is very beautiful for a 
window. I have one that bloomed last spring, and 
the flower was not much larger than a Morning Glory. 
This, in contrast with the large one, was quite unique. 
Mrs. Edwards. 
Courting. —“ Courting is about half nature and half 
science,” says Josh Billings. “ The nature iu it is 
simple energy. You must begin slow, and bye and 
bye it will ho best to agitate things. Wimmen never 
surrender, nor are they ever exactly won, but rather 
captured. They ‘fight it out on this line.’ There 
are wimmen who are as easy to court as lint. ‘ Luv 
at first sight’ is like eating honey. It duz seem as 
though you could never get enuff of it. This kind of 
luv is apt to make blunders, and is hard to hack out 
of as well, hut there ain’t any such thing az pure 
mathematicks in courting. If it is all nature, it is too 
innocent for earth, and if it is all science, it is too 
much of a job. Perhaps the best way to 00111 !; is to 
begin without much of any plan where you are going 
to fetch up, and let the thing kind of worry along 
kareless, like throwing stones into a mill-pond. You 
will find one thing strictly true—the more advice you 
undertake to follow, the less amount of good courting 
you will do.” 
Imagination. —If one would become a better 
parent or child, a more faithful friend, a more loyal 
citizen, it is because his imagination pictures a more 
perfect fulfilment of those relations. We all have 
our ideas of justice, integrity, purity, benevolence, and 
we cannot estimate their value to us. We may and 
do fall far short of them in actual life, but we can 
never go beyond them, for every new ascent in virtue 
shows fresh heights to he gained. If, then, imagina¬ 
tion is so potent a faculty, involving such weighty re¬ 
sults, we may well inquire how best to cultivate it, 
how to guide and train it, so as to insure its best de¬ 
velopment. Young persons often cheat themselves 
by the pleasant delusion that they are improving their 
imagination by reading extensively works of fiction. 
WEile this may render easy the passive conception 
of scenes presented through language, it will not 
strengthen, but rather paralyze, the higher -power of 
creative imagination, by condemning it to inaction. 
A Room Fit for a Queen. —A single Petunia in 
a hanging basket suspended in the front of the win¬ 
dow; some of the long stems falling over tho sides, 
and some tied up straight, hut all covered with pur¬ 
ple and white variegated blossoms. A Maderia vine 
covering nearly all the wall on one side, hut festooned 
over the door, and an English Ivy on the other side. 
In one corner a “Wandering Jew,” and in the other, 
hanging pots of cocoa-nut shell or goblet tops sus¬ 
pended in crotchet work of bright worsted—the whole 
costing less than fifty cents. Such was the make-up 
in the decorative line of a ladies’ sitting-room as 
recently described by the editor of the Maine Farmer. 
A French. Bedroom. —Now go to the bedroom, 
and from the door absorb it with your eyes, for never 
have you seen a picture more complete. The walls, 
the hangings, and the seats, are all in pale-blue satin 
(she is fair), edged sparingly with velvet of the same 
shade, and embroidered daintily with moss-rose buds, 
swathed in still paler yellow leaves. But this de¬ 
scription, though exact, gives no idea of the effect 
produced by that wondrous tissue, of the incredible 
effect of delicacy and thorough feminine elegance 
which it sheds around. The room is filled with 
vague, floating grace; its very detail is combined to 
aid and sustain the almost fairy aspect it presents. 
The bed is siirouded in thickly-wadded satin curtains, 
inside which hang others made of muslin so vapor- 
ously filmy that its folds seem almost mist; the cover¬ 
let, which hides the lace-trimmed sheets and pillows, 
is in blue satin, lined with eider down, and covered 
with the same veil of floating white, hanging down in 
a deep flounce over the woodwork of the bed. The 
toilet-table is the same—a nestling maze of trans¬ 
parency and lace, with blue beneath, and knots and 
streamers of mingled satin and velvet round. On the 
chimney-piece stand a clock and candle-sticks of 
Sevres china. The piano is in pale hois de rose (not 
rosewood, which is a very different substance), inlaid 
with plates of painted Sevres to match. At night 
light comes from above, where hangs a lamp, of 
Sevres again.— French Home Life. 
Story of a Yankee Cook Girl. —In Cincinnati 
they tell a little story about Mrs. Chief Justice Waite. 
A short time ago, before Gen. Grant had broached 
Mr. Waite’s name to the Senate—though Gen. Hillyer 
says Mr. Waite was always Gen. Grant’s first choice 
—hut before any thing was thought of the matter by 
the Waites, Mrs. Waite wrote an article on cookery 
for the Cincinnati Gazette. The article was signed 
“Yankee Cook Girl.” It was full of sound sugges¬ 
tions on the cookery question, and replete with good 
advice to housekeepers. Tho article from the “Yan¬ 
kee Cook Girl” arrested so much attention that finally 
a rich old widower in Cincinnati wrote to Sam Beed, 
the editor, that he would he glad to give the “Yankee 
Cook Girl” a situation—not as a servant, hut she 
might preside over his household. In fact, he offered 
her marriage. Mr. Beed had to answer in a para¬ 
graph that the “Yankee Cook Girl” was not in the 
market, she having got a situation in a neighboring 
city. The people of Cincinnati don’t know even now 
that the “ Yankee Cook Girl” was Mrs. Waite, the 
sensible and practical wife of the new Chief Justice, 
and that her new situation is to he the highest in the 
land—chief mistress in Undo Sam’s household of law 
and justice. 
Matrimonial Market. —It is a custom at a Gal¬ 
way fair for all the marriageable girls to assemble and 
to tempt all wanting wives, by their captivating 
charms, to he made more happy for life. Says an 
American gentleman of the highest character, who 
was an eye witness, and invited by a nobleman to go 
and see these girls: “ At 12 o’clock precisely we 
I went as directed, to a part of the ground higher than 
j the rest of the field, where we found from sixty to one 
| hundred young women, well dressed, with good looks 
and good manners, and presenting a spectacle quite 
worthy any civil or modest man’s feelings. They 
were the marriageable girls of the country, who had 
come to show themselves on the occasion, to the young 
men who wanted wives; and this was the plain and 
simple custom of the fair. I can plainly say that I 
saw in the custom no great impropriety—it certainly 
did not imply that, though they were ready to be had, 
any body could have them. It was not a Circassian 
slave market, where the richest purchaser could make 
his selection. They were, in no sense of the term, on 
sale, nor did they abandon their right of choice ; hut 
that which is done constantly in more refined society, 
under various covers and pretenses—at theatres, at 
balls and public exhibitions—I will say nothing about 
the churches—was done by these humble and unpre¬ 
tending people in this straightforward manner.” 
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