of
friendship, with plans for meeting again.

Everything seemed to have turned out in the best possible way.

We had each other, and Mary Phillips had some one to manage.

We should have been grieved if we had been obliged to leave her without
occupation.

At the moment of parting I drew her aside. "Mary," I said, "we have had
some strange experiences together, and I shall never forget them."

"Nor shall I, sir," she answered. "Some of them were so harrowing and
close-shaved, and such heart-breaking disappointments I never had. The
worst of all was when you threw that rope clean over our ship without
holding on to your end of it. I had been dead sure that the rope was
going to bring us all together."

"That was a terrible mishap," I answered; "what did Bertha think of
it?"

"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mary Phillips; "she wasn't on deck, and she
never knew anything about it. When I am nursing up a love match I don't
mention that sort of thing."

THE BAKER OF BARNBURY.

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

It was three days before Christmas, and the baker of the little village
of Barnbury sat in the room behind his shop. He was a short and sturdy
baker, a good fellow, and ordinarily of a jolly demeanor, but this day
he sat grim in his little back room.

"Christmas, indeed," he said to himself, "and what of Christmas? 'Thank
you, baker, and a merry Christmas to you,' and every one of them goes
away with the present of a raisin-cake, or a horse ginger-cake, if
they like that better. All this for the good of the trade, of course.
Confound the trade, I'm tired of trade. Is there no good in this world,
but the good of the trade? 'Oh, yes,' they'll say, 'there's Christmas,
and that's good.'--'But what is the good of it to me?' say I. Christmas
day is a family day, and to a man without a family it's no day at all.
I'm not even fourth cousin to a soul in the town. Nobody asks me to a
family dinner. 'Bake! baker!' they cry, 'that we may eat and love each
other.' Confound them! I am tired of it. What is Christmas to me? I
have a mind to skip it."

As he said this, a smile broke out on his face. "Skip Christmas," said
he; "that is a good idea. They did not think of me last year; this
would make them think of me this year."

As he said this he opened his order-book and ran his eye over the
names. "Here's orders from every one of them," said he, "from the
doctor down to Cobbler John. All have families, all give orders. It'