16 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
THE BITTER-SWEET, 
Celastras scandens, another of our native plants, is a 
twining wiry-wooded vine, with handsome, glossy, 
pointed leaves. It twines so tightly round the stems of 
young trees as frequently to kill them. The flowers of 
this plant are inconspicuous,- but they are succeeded in 
autumn by clusters of showy red berries, very conspic¬ 
uous when they burst open, showing their bright, 
orange-colored capsules. 
This plant is but occasionally cultivated in our gar¬ 
dens ; it is, however, none the less beautiful because 
it ■' does not bear the foreign stamp, although this 
would make^it welcome in any collection of beautiful 
plants. 
THE DOOR OF THE YEAR. 
The corridors of Time 
Are full of doors—the portals of closed years; 
We enter them no more, though bitter tears 
Beat hard against them, and we hear the chime 
Of lost dreams, dirge-like, behind them ring, 
At memory’s opening. 
A 
But one door stands ajar— 
The New Year’s; while a golden chain of days 
Holds it half-shut. The eager foot delays 
That presses to its threshold’s mighty bar; 
And fears that shrink, and hopes that shout aloud. 
Around it wait and crowd. 
It shuts back the unknown; 
And dare we truly welcome one more year, 
Who do era the past a mocking laughter hear 
From idle aims like wandering breezes blown ? 
We, whose large aspirations dimmed and shrank 
Till the year’s scroll was blank ? 
We pause beside the door; 
Thy year, O God, how shall we enter in? 
How shall we thence thy hidden treasure win ? 
Shall we return in beggary as before, 
When Thou are near at hand, with infinite wealth. 
Wisdom and heavenly health ? 
The footsteps of a Child 
Sound close beside us ! Listen ! He will speak ! 
His birthday-bells have hardly rung a week, 
Yet has He trod the world’s press undefiled, 
“ Come with Me ! ” hear Him through His smiling say, 
“ Behold, I am the Way ! ” 
Against the door His face 
Shines as the sun. His touch is a command ; 
The years unfold before His baby hand ! 
The beauty of His presence fills all space. 
“ Enter through Me,” He saith, “ nor wander more. 
For lo ! I am the Door.” 
And all doors openeth He, 
The new-born Christ, the Lord of the New Year, 
The threshold of our locked hearts standeth near; 
And while he gives us back love’s rusted key, 
Our future on us with his eyes has smiled, 
Even as a little child. 
— Selected. 
DAPHNE ODORA. 
“And only to think how different it was with her 
own,” said Mrs. Campbell, sighing and wiping her 
eyes. 
“It sounds like a fairy-tale,” said Efifie. “Thebeau- 
tiful little princess, with her lovely home and her fine 
dresses and flowers. And now she has lost them all, 
and is shut up in the grim old castle over there, with 
an ogress-for her guardian.” 
“Ah! my child, those are not all that she has lost,” 
said Mrs. Campbell. “ Think of the love and care that 
were always around her, until the day when her father 
sailed for Europe, and was never heard of again. This 
poor, pretty, little wife found herself sick with the 
waiting and longing, and there was only Sylvia to wait 
upon her. Mr. Nesbitt was a lawyer in good practice, 
but he had onJy just begun to lay by money and, 
though he had insured his life heavily, they could not 
obtain it, for lack of proof of his death. What they 
would have done I cannot tell, had not Mrs. Nesbitt’s 
aunt, Mrs. Lavvrie, taken pity upon them and given 
them a home in lies great, dull house, over there. A 
home, I said, but there is no home without love, and 
tlie'only love in that house is between Sylvia and her 
mother.” 
“ And so different once !” sighed Effie. 
“ I’only went there now and then, when extra help 
was needed,” continued Mrs. Campbell, “so that I did 
not see as much of her as the regular servants did, but 
many’s the night that I’ve staid overtime and peeped 
out to see her rustling down-stairs on her way to a 
party, with the light shining on her golden hair, and 
her soft pink cheeks and her shiny brown eyes rustling 
down in the silks and laces that were not softer nor 
fairer ,than Jher own white skin. She was a spoiled 
