DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Will you please tell me from which of Shakspeare's plays the following quotation is taken? "Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." --Yours truly, MARY H. WILSON. The quotation is from "As You Like It," Act II., Scene 1.; and the whole passage reads: "Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." The beauty is marred, and the aptness of the illustration is lost sight of, by omitting the second half of this admirable sentence; therefore we quote it entire. * * * * * "Fairfax," San Rafael, Cal. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have seen letters from San Francisco, Oakland, and other places in California, but I do not think any one has written to you from San Rafael, a beautiful little town near San Francisco. "Fairfax" is about three miles from the town. The ride here is very pleasant, especially in winter and spring time, when the hills are green and the wild flowers are in bloom. The house resembles the old Fairfax house in Virginia, called Greenway Court, except that this is perhaps more rambling and the other lacks our wide-spreading bay-trees. It faces the garden and orchard, and beyond these is the hill, a mine of wonder and beauty. We all enjoy climbing that hill and looking for ferns. In some parts we hardly dare step, for fear of crushing something beautiful. We look down upon a bank of green moss, and find snowy, shell-like fungi, so delicate that we hold our breath lest they should float away. Farther on are orange-colored ones, and some shaped like callas, translucent, and in color a pale pink carnelian. Wandering on, we enter a grove of pine-trees, in the midst of which a spring is bubbling up, and the ground is covered with a carpet of ferns, mosses, and wild flowers. By the time we are ready to go home, our baskets are well filled; and then, after we get home, we have the delight of arranging the flowers and ferns, examining the fungi with the microscope, and preparing imposing baskets of specimens to send to two delightful members of the Academy of Science in San Francisco, who are making fungi a specialty in their researches.