Only for the real will I with the ideal part: 
  Another shall not even tempt my heart.

When I saw her just four weeks since, I knew her,

  And my heart responded as, with unseen wings,
  An angel touched its unswept strings,
      And whispers in its song,
      Where hast thou strayed so long?”

But the avenging demon of curiosity was not to be exorcised by sentimental evasion:  “Those letters, sir, of which you spoke, they must have been of a real, tangible form—­not a part of the mythical phantasmagoria of your idealistic vision.”

He laughed as a light-hearted child would, but knitted his brow with a perplexed air as he said, “Why don’t the British government send a woman to find the source of the Nile?  I must thank your unsophisticated brother’s pride in his sister’s epistolary accomplishments for my privilege of perusal.  What next?”

I thought a moment.  Before, I had fifty other queries to propound, but now as I looked into the glowing anthracite before me which gave us those pleasant Reveries, they very naturally all resolved themselves into explained mysteries without his aid.

He insists that the “prophetic little yes or no” never came.

Upon my honor, dear reader, as a confidante, I still think it the most unfair procedure which ever “disgraced the annals of civilized warfare;” but I shall have abundant opportunity for revenge, for we are to make the journey of life together.

GLIMPSES OF JOHN CHINAMAN.

When John Marshall picked up the first golden nugget in California, a call was sounded for the gathering of an immense gold-seeking army made up of many nationalities; and among the rest China sent a battalion some fifty thousand strong.

John Chinaman has remained with us ever since, despised and abused, being neither a co-worshiper nor a co-sympathizer in aught save the getting of gold.  In dress, custom and language his is still a nationality as distinct from ours as are the waters of the Gulf Stream from those of the ocean.

It is possible that this may be but the second migration of Tartars to the American shore.  It is possible that the North American Indian and the Chinaman may be identical in origin and race.  Close observers find among the aboriginal tribes resident far up on the north-west American coast peculiar habits and customs, having closely-allied types among the Chinese.  The features of the Aleuts, the natives of the Aleutian Islands, are said to approximate closely to those of the Mongolians.  The unvarying long black hair, variously-shaded brown skin, beardless face and shaven head are points, natural and artificial, common to the Indian and Mongolian.  There is a hint of common custom between the Indian scalplock and Chinese cue.