ay never
know; but I am sure, that, living or dead, He who is loving and over all
has the poor "natural" in His tenderest keeping, and that some day she
will go home to Him and to Joe.

WINTER-LIFE IN ST. PETERSBURG.

As September drew to an end, with only here and there a suggestion of
autumn in chrome-colored leaves on the ends of birch-branches, we were
told that any day might suddenly bring forth winter. I remember, that,
five years before, in precisely the same season, I had travelled from
Upsala to Stockholm in a violent snow-storm, and therefore accepted the
announcement as a part of the regular programme of the year. But the
days came and went; fashionable equipages forsook their summer ground of
the Islands, and crowded the Nevskoi Prospekt; the nights were cold and
raw; the sun's lessening declination was visible from day to day, and
still Winter delayed to make his appearance.

The Island drive was our favorite resort of an afternoon; and we
continued to haunt it long after every summer guest had disappeared, and
when the _datchas_ and palaces showed plank and matting in place of
balcony and window. In the very heart of St. Petersburg the one full
stream of the Nevada splits into three main arms, which afterwards
subdivide, each seeking the Gulf of Finland at its own swift, wild will.
The nearest of these islands, Vassili Ostrow, is a part of the solid
city: on Kammenoi and Aptekarskoi you reach the commencement of gardens
and groves; and beyond these the rapid waters mirror only palace, park,
and summer theatre. The widening streams continually disclose the
horizon-line of the Gulf; and at the farthest point of the drive, where
the road turns sharply back again from the freedom of the shore into
mixed woods of birch and pine, the shipping at Cronstadt--and sometimes
the phantoms of fortresses--detach themselves from the watery haze, and
the hill of Pargola, in Finland, rises to break the dreary level of the
Ingrian marshes.

During the sunny evenings and the never-ending twilights of mid-summer,
all St. Petersburg pours itself upon these islands. A league-long wall
of dust rises from the carriages and droschkies in the main highway; and
the branching Neva-arms are crowded with skiffs and diminutive steamers
bound for pleasure-gardens where gypsies sing and Tyrolese _yodel_ and
jugglers toss their knives and balls, and private rooms may be had for
gambling and other cryptic diversions. Although wi