d miles of their watery
playing-places we have passed over, and they are not pretty to look at.
Roll on, et cetera, et cetera,--and so will we, for the present, at
least, as far out of _your_ reach as possible.

Yes, wise denizen of the Celestial Empire, it is a good, nay, a great
thing, to return even to so small a home-object as an old tea-cup. As
we lift the bright brim to our so long absent lips, we repeat it. As we
pour out our second, our third, and our fourth, we say it again. Ling
Ching, you were right!

And now, as the rest of the household have all gone up bed-ward, and
left us with their good-night tones,

"Like flowers' voices, if they could but speak,"

we dip our pen into the cocked hat of the brave little bronze warrior
who has fed us many a year with ink from the place where his brains
ought to be. Pausing before we proceed to paper, we look around on our
household gods. The coal bursts into crackling fits of merriment, as we
thrust the poker between the iron ribs of the grate. It seems to say,
in the jolliest possible manner of which it is capable, "Oh, go no more
a-roaming, a-roaming, across the windy sea!" How odd it seems to be
sitting here again, listening to the old clock out there in the entry!
Often we seemed to hear it during the months that have flown away, when
we knew that "our ancient" was standing sentinel for Time in another
hemisphere. One night, dark and stormy on the Mediterranean, as we lay
wakeful and watchful in the little steamer that was bearing us painfully
through the noisy tempest towards Saint Peter's and the Colosseum,
suddenly, above the tumult of the voyage, our household monitor began
audibly and regularly, we thought, to mark the seconds. Then it must
have been only fancy. Now it is something more, and we know that our
mahogany friend is really wagging his brassy beard just outside the
door. We remember now, as we lay listening that rough night at sea, how
Milton's magic sounding line came to us beating a sad melody with the
old clock's imagined tramp,--

"The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint."

Let the waves bark to-night far out on "the desolate, rainy seas,"--the
old clock is all right in the entry!

Landed, and all safe at last! our much-abused, lock-broken, unhinged
portmanteau unpacked and laid ignobly to rest under the household eaves!
Stay a moment,--let us pitch our inky passport into the fire. How it
writhes and grows black in the face! And