cabs and coupes now as ever deposit their fair burdens. On entering the Hall two flights of stairs ascend. The one on the left leads to the Ball Room, the beauty of its white and gold mouldings and cornices striking the eye at first glance. It is carpeted in the same rich crimson as the lobby, stairs and corridors. On great occasions there is set up the dais or throne, over which hangs the oil painting of Lord Aberdeen done by Robert Harris. The building is very plainly finished through

RIDEAU HALL-THE ENTRANCE,

out. With the exception of papering and painting, the rooms and the furniture they contain remain unchanged from one generation of Governors to another. In some of the rooms upstairs the carpets look decidedly the worse for wear. The corridors are the most striking feature. The lobby narrows into one long aisle connecting the old part with the new; turning to the left by the conservatory it ends in the Chapel. The deep red carpet, with its

suggestion of warmth and luxury gives a very pleasing effect. In Lord Dufferin's time there was a skeleton, not indeed in his cupboard, but in the corner spoken of, and it used to be one of the traps laid for the unwary to come with a sharp turn upon the apparition. It was one used by the Governor to help him in his art studies, and was afterwards given to Sir James Grant, whose children dubbed it "Count Fosko."

From a skeleton to a ghost is not a very far cry, and there is just a faint suspicion of his ghostship about the place, an elusive legend that will not be hunted down, and in fact a hint of such a thing is all that is needed to put the old "castle" on a proper and respectable footing, for all ancient and honourable houses should by rights have a "haunt." Eerie stories were told at the time of its dismantling and altering by the Government, and the whisper that the place was haunted doubtless sent many a servant maid shivering to bed, but the only unrestful spirits ever evoked were the dusky bats which issued in great numbers from their hiding places as, disturbed, they flew distractedly about the tenantless and echoing rooms. For it is useless to try to invest Rideau Hall with romance and mystery; it is not old enough for legends to have become respected and safe from the hand of the antiquarian iconoclast. It is not a ruin, picturesque, and beautiful in decay; rather it is prosaic and humdrum to the last degree.

A subterranean passage was once discovered beneath the house, and excitement ran high over the terrible deeds that might have been done in the bowels of the earth; skeletons were confidently and momently expected, and every one was on the qui vive for startling developments, when the quest ended ignominiously in an abandoned

and the

drawing room form a suite of rooms in which the colour scheme is the same. They are carpeted in the crimson brussels used in the corridors; the paper is of pale

green. The drawing room is the largest room in the house, except the ball room, and it overlooks the lawn. Pale green chintz covers the furniture. An object always of much interest is the door painted by H. R. H. Princess Louise; the small panels are gilded, and the whole door covered with boughs of crab-apples, the effect being extremely pretty. Otherwise this reception room is not remarkable in any way for its beauty. Lying on the table amongst the books was noticed a number of the CANADIAN MAGAZINE. In Lady Aberdeen's study are several good pictures; there is, too, an illustration of the Irish village at the World's Fair. A grandfather's clock is in the room, and Gladstone's face looks down be-nignly from the wall. The Earl's sanctum is very similar, though smaller. Those who are invited to dinner at Government House dine in a room that can seat thirty. The ceiling and walls are tinted in terra cotta, the mouldings being of black and gold. A stuffed bear stands in one corner, a memento of the Quebec Carnival.

Two bronze busts look from their niches on those who ascend the stairs. The guests' bedrooms are very small for the most part; in those of His Excel

lency and Her Ladyship the furniture gives the effect of solidity and massiveness. Lady Marjorie's room is in the old part, near that most interesting chamber, the "Oval Room," which reminds one of the days that are gone. The latter is full of old associations and memories. In the Dufferins' time it was a ball-room, and it has been since used as a morning-room, bedroom, study and school-room. During the present regime it was used in the latter capacity, and though, as far as Lady Marjorie Gordon is concerned, "the child is a woman, the book may close over, for all the lessons are said," yet it is full of mementoes of her happy school days and those of her brothers. The wall is decorated with hockey sticks, dumb-bells and tennis racquets, and, of course, the ever-necessary maps. There are rules for the guidance of the little students, and there is one announcement which must be mentioned at the risk of intruding on the family privacy. A huge poster calls attention to the fact that A. and M. Gordon are able and willing to take photographs "unrivalled for delicacy and finish" for such as will pay five cents a sitting. Samples of the work are given, endorsed as "speaking likenesses taken at rather in

"God help the child," said the old woman as she hung the limp, black stocking on the nail-"God help the poor childeen. Shure He'll send th' ould Saint on his reindeer. He couldn't refuse the child. I'll just throw me shawl over me head an' step out to the village an' ax Widow Dooley if ever she heerd the like."

But first Honor went to the small room where she slept, a tiny, windowless pocket of a place where little daylight ever entered. Lighting a "bit" of candle she turned back the mattress and drew out the long, gray stocking in which she kept her money.

"Failing the Saint comin'-'tis busy he'll be, the crathur, if he has to go callin' on all the childhre of the world -I'll buy somethin' beyant at the shop for the childeen's stockin'," she said, as she fumbled in the woollen toes. "Begor 'tis little that's in it-on'y elevenpence. Bad scran to me entirely, givin' thirteen shillin's last half gale to the agint on account of Maureen Doherty's land. What right have I to be payin' the rent for me cousin's wife's sister-in-law? An' here I am left without a shilling for me own little child. The sorra a sixpence would I borrow from th' ould housekeeper here if th' eyes was to fall out of me head on the 'count of it. Maybe I could get sixpennorth of something for the child anyway."

Brisk was Widow Dooley on her feet behind the little block of counter that bit deep into her kitchen. Up and down clammered the scales with their ounces of tea and half-pounds of raisins. Busy too, was her tall son, Peter, stooping for herrings out of the barrel, and joking with the girshas as he sold them

the Christmas candles. A pleasant word for everybody had the mother and son as they bustled about from one to the other.

"Ah, then, God save yourself, and a merry Chrismas to you, Honor," said Widow Dooley in response to the old woman's greetings. "How is it with ye at the Big House to-night with the masther and misthress off in Dublin?"

"Middlin', middlin', Mrs. Dooley, thank you kindly," said Honor, as she edged her way through the people. Leaning over the counter she whispered a word into the good woman's ear:

"Sorra Saint of that name I ever heerd tell of," said Mrs. Dooley with a shake of her cap-borders; "but shure there's many a holy man in the calendher that's past understanding be the name they put on him. An' now you tell me he comes all over the world, down the chimley wherever there's a child! Dear, dear! and its ten of them I rared without bit or sup from him. A couple of herrin's? Certainly, Mrs. Casey, ma'am -an' how's Father Mike gettin' on at Maynooth, now? An' ounce of twist for your father, is it, Jimmy O'Dowd? an' the divil a penny in your fist to pay for it! Don't you know well that 'tisn't any score a shop like this is afther givin'? Run away home out o' that, an' come back with the thruppence. So the good woman rattled on.

Honor withdrew into the background and looked about her carefully. There was no use troubling Widow Dooley with any more talk about Saint Claus. She knew no more about it than Honor herself. Maybe 'twas a new Saint they made a while ago, that "the quality knew about, but that hadn't reached the country people yet. Certain it is, that these simple country people, filled as they were with song and legend and superstition, had never become acquainted with the quaint German story of Santa Claus.

The shop "window" was merely the four crooked panes of the cabin. They were stuffed with everything. Soap, starch, blue, potash, tape, little cakes, thimbles and bread were jumbled behind the crossed pipes and heavy roll