ldlike
beauty and originality, as rare and delicate as those strange,
unreasonable little glimmers of spring sunsets that now and then light
up for a brief moment the dull skies of winter evenings, and seem to
have strayed into ungrateful January out of sheer pity for the sad
earth.

Mendocino noticed the facts that form the basis of the above
meteorological simile, and we believe we gave Mendocino full credit for
it at the time. We refer to the matter at this date only because in our
remarks of a few days ago we had occasion to mention the fact of the
existence of Mr. Zeke Kilburn, an advance agent, who called upon us at
the time, to endeavor to induce us, by means apparently calculated more
closely for the latitude of Mendocino, to extend to Miss Saville, before
her appearance, the critical approbation which we gladly extended after.
This little item of interest we alluded to at the time, and furthermore
intimated, with some vagueness, that there existed in Kilburn's
character a certain misdirected zeal combined with a too keen artistic
appreciation, are apt to be rather dangerous stock-in trade for an
advance agent.

It was twenty seven minutes past two o'clock yesterday afternoon. The
chaste white mystery of Shigo Mountain was already taking on a faint,
almost imperceptible, hint of pink, like the warm cheek of a girl who
hears a voice and anticipates a blush. Yet the rays of the afternoon sun
rested with undiminished radiance on the empty pork-barrel in front of
McMullin's shebang. A small and vagrant infant, whose associations with
empty barrels were doubtless hitherto connected solely with dreams of
saccharine dissipation, approached the bunghole with precocious caution,
and retired with celerity and a certain acquisition of experience. An
unattached goat, a martyr to the radical theory of personal
investigation, followed in the footsteps of infantile humanity, retired
with even greater promptitude, and was fain to stay its stomach on a
presumably empty rend-rock can, afterward going into seclusion behind
McMullin's horse-shed, before the diuretic effect of tin flavored with
blasting-powder could be observed by the attentive eye of science.

Mr. Kilburn emerged from the hostlery without Mr. McMullin. Mr. Kilburn,
as we have before stated at his own request, is a gentleman of imposing
presence. It is well that we made this statement when we did, for it is
hard to judge of the imposing quality in a gentleman's p