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MARY BARRY SMITH.

ISS MARY BARRY SMITH was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward's Island, which now forms part of the Dominion of Canada. Her father, Rev. William Smith, a highly-esteemed minister of the Methodist Church, was a native of Nottingham, England. Her mother was the youngest daughter of the late Robert Barry, a Loyalist, who settled in Shelbourne, Nova Scotia, and whose name is widely known and honored as one prominently connected with the early settlement and development of that province. He became connected by marriage with a southern family, his wife being the sister of Rev. William Jessop, a poet-preacher, whose name is honorably recorded in the annals of early Methodism. In accordance with the itinerant system of the denomination to which he belonged, Mr. Smith made frequent removals with his family to different spheres of labor, and through the years of a successful ministry he resided in various towns and villages of Nova Scotia and the adjoining province. After his death the family took up their residence in St. John, N. B. The children of these parents, inheriting from their mother a marked poetic talent and gifted with a keen appreciation of all intellectual pursuits, were reared in an atmosphere of simplicity and refinement. They early discovered considerable literary ability; even their recreations partook largely of this character. For several years the sisters conducted a journal called The Household Wreath, editing it in turn and contributing to it articles in prose and verse over various signatures. This was read once a fortnight to the assembled household. Fugitive poems from the pen of each have since found their way to the public through different periodicals, while Miss Mary Barry has been a regular contributor to several popular magazines. Some of her earliest pieces appeared in the pages of the Ladies' Repository, a literary journal published in Cincinnati, while those of maturer years have compelled recognition in a wider field.

Of Miss Smith's personal characteristics, of the sensibility of her imagination and the depths of her sympathies, much may be known by her writings. In social life she displays considerable versatility. She is animated in conversation and possesses a somewhat remarkable memory, which has been richly stored. She has given some attention to the study of elocution, and on occasions will consent to gratify her friends by the rendition of her favorite authors. Of late years artistic pursuits have divided her attention with those purely

literary. She is perhaps better known in St. John as an artist than as a writer. Her studio contains some very successful expressions of skill in oil and water colors, and she finds a rare pleasure on summer afternoons in transferring to canvas the picturesque bits of scenery, the rocks and wharves, fishing vessels and weirs with which the harbor of St. John abounds.

It is her intention at an early day to collect her poems and issue them in a volume, illustrated by her own pencil. A. H. E.

ELSWITHA.

ELSWITHA Knitteth the stocking blue,

In the flickering firelight's glow;
Dyed are her hands in its ruddy hue,
And it glints on the shining needles, too,
And flashes her cap of snow.
Elswitha dreameth a waking dream,

As busy her fingers ply;

And it lights her eye with its olden gleam,
For the world seems now as it used to seem,
And the things far off are nigh,

The things far off in the lapse of years,
Dead faces and loves outgrown.
Oh, many a form at her side appears,
And many a voice in her soul she hears,
And many a long-hushed tone.

For Memory walks through her halls to-night,
A torch in her lifted hand,

And, lo! at the sound of her footstep light,
They shake them free from the dust and blight
And, trooping, around her stand.

Bright curls of auburn and braids of brown,
With the sunlight sifted through,

And foreheads, white as the hawthorn's crown,
And garlands fresh as when last thrown down,
Ay, fresher in scent and hue!

They come from aisles of the buried past,
From the faded long ago,

From sepulchers old, and dim, and vast,
They come, with their grave-clothes from them
cast,

To stand in this firelight glow!

And weird is the charm they weave, I trow!
Elswitha is young and fair,

Gone are the furrows and tear stains now,
Gone are the wrinkles from hand and brow,
The silver from shining hair.

Gone are the years with their heavy weight
(And heavy the years had grown),