et; height from low water, two
hundred and eighty-seven feet. An inscription on one of the piers thus
epitomizes its story: "Suspensa vix via fit."

There are many reflections which may be called up by a glance over the
brink of the chasm at Clifton. Down this muddy ditch dropped the little
Matthew, with the Cabots in command, bound for the discovery of America;
borne on the surface of this liquid mud, the Great Western (built at
Bristol) found its way to the sea and demonstrated the practicability of
steam traffic with America; and if you ask why Bristol now has so little
share in that traffic, although reasons as plenty as blackberries will
be showered upon you, perhaps you will find as convincing a reason as
any in the sight of this narrow and tortuous channel. Now, at last,
docks are being built at the mouth of the Avon, and one adapted to the
largest vessels was opened on the 24th of February, 1877. The prospects
of present success cannot be brilliant in the prevalent depression of
the Atlantic trade, yet, to have heard the wild talk in February, one
would have thought that the dock had only to open its mouth (or gate) to
have the great plums of trade at once fall into it. The company is too
wise to expect to catch birds simply by hanging out a cage: every one
waits to see what _bait_ they will offer. It is claimed that the passage
from New York to Avonmouth may be made in a day less than to the Mersey,
and mails and passengers forwarded thence to London in three hours. May
we soon have the pleasure of welcoming American friends on Avonmouth
Dock!

ALFRED S. GIBBS.

AN ATELIER DES DAMES.

[Illustration: TABLEAU VIVANT.]

After years of patient endeavor, of hope deferred and heart oftentimes
made sick, Paletta found herself at last in Paris. Behind her were years
of anxious calculations and shabby economies, a chequered pathway of
brilliant ambitions and sombre discouragements. Before her was another
vista of several years of art-study in the great capital--a vista
arched, she could not but know, by as heavy clouds as had ever darkened
her path. Yet she _felt_, even although she could not see its end, that
the forward vista climbed ever upward toward glorious heights, upon
which the storms of despair never beat, and where she could more nearly
touch upon the divine ideals that ever elude the grasp of even the
loftiest of earth's climbers.

And thus she was content. Paletta was yet a little young, it m