ST.

JOHN'S EVE.
It was St.John's Eve; Government House was a scene of splendour; truly every precinct was a blaze of dazzling light.

Here was assembled the distinguished, gay, beauty, and wit of the Province; the learned and severe as well as the thoughtless.

Hearts beat with throbbing and exciting pulsation, fired by hope's fondest dreams.

The spacious drawing-room, already described in a preceding chapter, now assumed, if possible, a more brilliant aspect--flooded with light, rendered more effective by an additional chandelier, a gem of countless scintillations, distracting in variety and prismatic design.