HISTORIC GIRLS

Stories Of Girls Who Have Influenced The History Of Their Times

By E. S. Brooks

PREFACE. 

In these progressive days, when so much energy and discussion aredevoted to what is termed equality and the rights of woman, it is wellto remember that there have been in the distant past women, and girlseven, who by their actions and endeavors proved themselves the equals ofthe men of their time in valor, shrewdness, and ability. 

This volume seeks to tell for the girls and boys of to-day the storiesof some of their sisters of the long-ago, --girls who by eminent positionor valiant deeds became historic even before they had passed thecharming season of girlhood. 

Their stories are fruitful of varying lessons, for some of thesehistoric girls were wilful as well as courageous, and mischievous aswell as tender-hearted. 

But from all the lessons and from all the morals, one truth stands outmost clearly--the fact that age and country, time and surroundings, makebut little change in the real girl-nature, that has ever been impulsive, trusting, tender, and true, alike in the days of the Syrian Zenobia andin those of the modern American school-girl. 

After all, whatever the opportunity, whatever the limitation, whateverthe possibilities of this same never-changing girl-nature, no betterprecept can be laid down for our own bright young maidens, as nonebetter can be deduced from the stories herewith presented, than thatphrased in Kingsley's noble yet simple verse:

 "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever Do noble things, not dream them, all day long And so make life, death, and the vast forever One grand, sweet song. "

Grateful acknowledgment is made by the author for the numerousexpressions of interest that came to him from his girl-readers as thepapers now gathered into book-form appeared from time to time in thepages of St. Nicholas. The approval of those for whom one studies andlabors is the pleasantest and most enduring return. 

CONTENTS

ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA: THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT

HELENA OF BRITAIN: THE GIRL OF THE ESSEX FELLS

PULCHERIA OF CONSTANTINOPLE: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN HORN

CLOTILDA OF BURGUNDY: THE GIRL OF THE FRENCH VINEYARDS

WOO OF HWANG-HO: THE GIRL OF THE YELLOW RIVER

EDITH OF SCOTLAND: THE GIRL OF THE NORTHERN ABBEY

JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS

CATARINA OF VENICE: THE GIRL OF THE GRAND CANAL

THERESA OF AVILA: THE GIRL OF THE SPANISH SIERRAS

ELIZABETH OF TUDOR: THE GIRL OF THE HERTFORD MANOR

CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN: THE GIRL OF THE NORTHERN FIORDS

MA-TA-OKA OF POW-HA-TAN: THE GIRL OF THE VIRGINIA FORESTS

ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA: THE GIRL OF THE SYRIAN DESERT. 

[Afterward known as "Zenobia Augusta, Queen of the East. "] A. D. 250. 

MANY and many miles and many days' journey toward the rising sun, overseas and mountains and deserts, --farther to the east than Rome, orConstantinople, or even Jerusalem and old Damascus, --stand the ruins ofa once mighty city, scattered over a mountain-walled oasis of the greatSyrian desert, thirteen hundred feet above the sea, and just across thenorthern border of Arabia. Look for it in your geographies. It is knownas Palmyra. To-day the jackal prowls through its deserted streets andthe lizard suns himself on its fallen columns, while thirty or fortymiserable Arabian huts huddle together in a small corner of what wasonce the great court-yard of the magnificent Temple of the Sun. 

And yet, sixteen centuries ago, Palmyra, or Tadmor as it was originallycalled, was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Nature andart combined to make it glorious. Like a glittering mirage out of thesand-swept desert arose its palaces and temples and grandly sculpturedarchways. With aqueducts and monuments and gleaming porticos withcountless groves of palm-trees and gardens full of verdure; with wellsand fountains, market and circus; with broad streets stretching away tothe city gates and lined on either side with magnificent colonnades ofrose-colored marble--such was Palmyra in the year of our Lord 250, when, in the soft Syrian month of Nisan, or April, in an open portico in thegreat colonnade and screened from the sun by gayly colored awnings, twoyoung people--a boy of sixteen and a girl of twelve--looked down uponthe beautiful Street of the Thousand Columns, as lined with bazaars andthronged with merchants it stretched from the wonderful Temple of theSun to the triple Gate-way of the Sepulchre, nearly a mile away. 

Both were handsome and healthy--true children of old Tadmor, thatglittering, fairy-like city which, Arabian legends say, was built by thegenii for the great King Solomon ages and ages ago. Midway betweenthe Mediterranean and the Euphrates, it was the meeting-place for thecaravans from the east and the wagon trains from the west, and it hadthus become a city of merchant princes, a wealthy commercial republic, like Florence and Venice in the middle ages--the common toll-gate forboth the East and West. 

But, though a tributary colony of Rome, it was so remote a dependencyof that mighty mistress of the world that the yoke of vassalage wasbut carelessly worn and lightly felt. The great merchants and chiefsof caravans who composed its senate and directed its affairs, andwhose glittering statues lined the sculptured cornice of its marblecolonnades, had more power and influence than the far-off Emperor atRome, and but small heed was paid to the slender garrison that acted asguard of honor to the strategi or special officers who held the colonyfor Rome and received its yearly tribute. And yet so strong a force wasRome in the world that even this free-tempered desert city had graduallybecome Romanized in manners as in name, so that Tadmor had become firstAdrianapolis and then Palmyra. And this influence had touched even thesechildren in the portico. For their common ancestor--a wealthy merchantof a century before--had secured honor and rank from the EmperorSeptimus Severus--the man who "walled in" England, and of whom it wassaid that "he never performed an act of humanity or forgave a fault. "Becoming, by the Emperor's grace, a Roman citizen, this merchant ofPalmyra, according to a custom of the time, took the name of his royalpatron as that of his own "fahdh, " or family, and the father of youngOdhainat in the portico, as was Odhainat himself, was known as SeptimusOdaenathus, while the young girl found her Arabic name of Bath Zabbai, Latinized into that of Septima Zenobia. 

But as, thinking nothing of all this, they looked lazily on the throngbelow, a sudden exclamation from the lad caused his companion to raiseher flashing black eyes inquiringly to his face. 

"What troubles you, my Odhainat?" she asked. 

"There, there; look there, Bath Zabbai!" replied the boy excitedly;"coming through the Damascus arch, and we thought him to be in Emesa. "

The girl's glance followed his guiding finger, but even as she looked aclear trumpet peal rose above the din of the city, while from beneatha sculptured archway that spanned a colonnaded cross-street the brightApril sun gleamed down upon the standard of Rome with its eagle crestand its S. P. Q. R. Design beneath. There is a second trumpet peal, andswinging into the great Street of the Thousand Columns, at the headof his light-armed legionaries, rides the centurion Rufinus, latelyadvanced to the rank of tribune of one of the chief Roman cohorts inSyria. His coming, as Odhainat and even the young Bath Zabbai knew, meant a stricter supervision of the city, a re-enforcement of itsgarrison, and the assertion of the mastership of Rome over this fareastern province on the Persian frontier. 

"But why should the coming of the Roman so trouble you, my Odhainat?"she asked. "We are neither Jew nor Christian that we should fear hiswrath, but free Palmyreans who bend the knee neither to Roman norPersian masters. "

"Who WILL bend the knee no longer, be it never so little, my cousin, "exclaimed the lad hotly, "as this very day would have shown had not thiscrafty Rufinus--may great Solomon's genii dash him in the sea!--comewith his cohort to mar our measures! Yet see--who cometh now?" he cried;and at once the attention of the young people was turned in theopposite direction as they saw, streaming out of the great fortress-likecourt-yard of the Temple of the Sun, another hurrying throng. 

Then young Odhainat gave a cry of joy. 

"See, Bath Zabbai; they come, they come"! he cried. "It is my father, Odhainat the esarkos, (1) with all the leaders and all the bowmen andspearmen of our fahdh armed and in readiness. This day will we fling offthe Roman yoke and become the true and unconquered lords of Palmyra. AndI, too, Must join them, " he added. 

(1) The "head man, " or chief of the "fahdh, " or family. 

But the young girl detained him. "Wait, cousin, " she said; "watch andwait. Our fahdh will scarce attempt so brave a deed to-day, with thesenew Roman soldiers in our gates. That were scarcely wise. "

But the boy broke out again. "So; they have seen each other, " he said;"both sides are pressing on!"

"True; and they will meet under this very portico, " said Bath Zabbai, and moved both by interest and desire this dark-eyed Syrian girl, towhom fear was never known, standing by her cousin's side, looked downupon the tossing sea of spears and lances and glittering shields andhelmets that swayed and surged in the street below. 

"So, Odaenathus!" said Rufinus, the tribune, reining in his horse andspeaking in harsh and commanding tones, "what meaneth this array ofarmed followers?"

"Are the movements of Septimus Odaenathus, the head-man, of suchimportance to the noble tribune that he must needs question a freemerchant of Palmyra as to the number and manner of his servants?" askedOdaemathus haughtily. 

"Dog of a Palmyrean; slave of a camel-driver, " said the Roman angrily, "trifle not with me. Were you ten times the free merchant you claim, youshould not thus reply. Free, forsooth! None are free but Romans. "

"Have a care, O Rufinus, " said the Palmyrean boldly, "choose wiser wordsif you would have peaceful ways. Palmyra brooks no such slander of herforemost men. "

"And Rome brooks no such men as you, traitor, " said Rufinus. "Ay, traitor, I say, " he repeated, as Odaenathus started at the word. "Thinknot to hide your plots to overthrow the Roman power in your city andhand the rule to the base Sapor of Persia. Every thing is known toour great father the Emperor, and thus doth he reckon with traitors. Macrinus, strike!" and at his word the short Gallic sword in the readyhand of the big German foot-soldier went straight to its mark andOdaenathus, the "head-man" of Palmyra, lay dead in the Street of theThousand Columns. 

So sudden and so unexpected was the blow that the Palmyreans stood as ifstunned, unable to comprehend what had happened. But the Roman was swiftto act. 

"Sound, trumpets! Down, pikes!" he cried, and as the trumpet peal roseloud and clear, fresh legionaries came hurrying through the Damascusarch, and the pilum(1) and spatha of Rome bore back the shields andlances of Palmyra. 

(1) The pilum was the Roman pike, and the spatha the short single-edgedRoman sword. 

But, before the lowered pikes could fully disperse the crowd, thethrong parted and through the swaying mob there burst a lithe and flyingfigure--a brown-skinned maid of twelve with streaming hair, loose robe, and angry, flashing eyes. Right under the lowered pikes she darted and, all flushed and panting, defiantly faced the astonished Rufinus. Closebehind her came an equally excited lad who, when he saw the strickenbody of his father on the marble street, flung himself weeping upon it. But Bath Zabbai's eyes flashed still more angrily:

"Assassin, murderer!" she cried; "you have slain my kinsman andOdhainat's father. How dare you; how dare you!" she repeated vehemently, and then, flushing with deeper scorn, she added: "Roman, I hate you!Would that I were a man. Then should all Palmyra know how----"

"Scourge these children home, " broke in the stern Rufinus, "or fetchthem by the ears to their nurses and their toys. Let the boys and girlsof Palmyra beware how they mingle in the matters of their elders, or inthe plots of their fathers. Men of Palmyra, you who to-day have daredto think of rebellion, look on your leader here and know how Rome dealswith traitors. But, because the merchant Odaenathus bore a Roman name, and was of Roman rank--ho, soldiers! bear him to his house, and letPalmyra pay such honor as befits his name and station. "

The struggling children were half led, half carried into the sculpturedatrium(1) of the palace of Odaenathus which, embowered in palms andvines and wonderful Eastern plants, stood back from the marble colonnadeon the Street of the Thousand Columns. And when in that same atriumthe body of the dead merchant lay embalmed and draped for its "longhome, "(2) there, kneeling by the stricken form of the murdered fatherand kinsman, and with uplifted hand, after the vindictive manner ofthese fierce old days of blood, Odaemathus and Zenobia swore eternalhatred to Rome. 

(1) The large central "living-room" of a Roman palace. 

(2) The Palmyreans built great tower-tombs, beautiful in architectureand adornment, the ruins of which still stand on the hill slopesoverlooking the old city. These they called their "long homes, " and youwill find the word used in the same sense in Ecclesiastes xii. , 5. 

Hatred, boys and girls, is a very ugly as it is a very headstrong fault;but as there is a good side even to a bad habit, so there is a hatredwhich may rise to the heighth of a virtue. Hatred of vice IS virtue;hatred of tyranny is patriotism. It is this which has led the world fromslavery to freedom, from ignorance to enlightenment, and inspired thewords that have found immortality alike above the ashes of Bradshawthe regicide and of Jefferson the American. Rebellion to tyrants isobedience to God. 

But how could a fatherless boy and girl, away off on the edge of anArabian desert, hope to resist successfully the mighty power of ImperialRome? The story of their lives will tell. 

If there are some people who are patriots, there are others who arepoltroons, and such a one was Hairan, the elder brother of youngOdhainat, when, succeeding to his dead father's wealth and power, hethought less of Roman tyranny than of Roman gold. 

"Revenge ourselves on their purses, my brother, and not on their pikes, "he said. "'T is easier and more profitable to sap the Roman's gold thanto shed the Roman's blood. "

But this submission to Rome only angered Odhainat, and to such aconflict of opinion did it lead that at last Hairan drove his youngerbrother from the home of his fathers, and the lad, "an Esau among theJacobs of Tadmor, " so the record tells us, spent his youth amid theroving Bedaween of the Arabian deserts and the mountaineers of theArmenian hills, waiting his time. 

But, though a homeless exile, the dark-eyed Bath Zabbai did not forgethim. In the palace of another kinsman, Septimus Worod, the "lord of themarkets, " she gave herself up to careful study, and hoped for the dayof Palmyra's freedom. As rich in powers of mind as in the graces ofform and face, she soon became a wonderful scholar for those distantdays--mistress of four languages: Coptic, Syriac, Latin, and Greek, while the fiery temper of the girl grew into the nobler ambitions of themaiden. But above all things, as became her mingled Arabic and Egyptianblood--for she could trace her ancestry back to the free chiefs of theArabian desert, and to the dauntless Cleopatra of Egypt, --she loved theexcitement of the chase, and in the plains and mountains beyond the cityshe learned to ride and hunt with all the skill and daring of a youngDiana. 

And so it came to pass that when the Emperor Valerian sent an embassyfrom Rome to Ctesiphon, bearing a message to the Great King, as Sapor, the Persian monarch, was called, the embassy halted in Palmyra, andSeptimus Hairan, now the head-man of the city, ordered, "in the name ofthe senate and people of Palmyra, " a grand venatio, or wild beast hunt, in the circus near the Street of the Thousand Columns, in honor ofhis Roman guests. And he despatched his kinsman Septimus Zabbai, thesoldier, to the Armenian hills to superintend the capture and deliveryof the wild game needed for the hunt. With a great following of slavesand huntsmen, Zabbai the soldier departed, and with him went his niece, Bath Zabbai, or Zenobia, now a fearless young huntress of fifteen. Spacewill not permit to tell of the wonders and excitement of that wild-beasthunt--a hunt in which none must be killed but all must be capturedwithout mar or wound. Such a trapping of wolves and bears and buffaloeswas there, such a setting of nets and pitfalls for the mountain lion andthe Syrian leopard, while the Arab hunters beat, and drove, and shouted, or lay in wait with net and blunted lance, that it was rare sport to thefearless Zenobia, who rode her fleet Arabian horse at the very head ofthe chase, and, with quick eye and practised hand, helped largely toswell the trophies of the hunt. What girl of to-day, whom even thepretty little jumping-mouse of Syria would scare out of her wits, couldbe tempted to witness such a scene? And yet this young Palmyrean girlloved nothing better than the chase, and the records tell us that shewas a "passionate hunter, " and that---she pursued with ardor the wildbeasts of the desert and thought nothing of fatigue or peril. 

So, through dense Armenian forests and along rugged mountain paths, downrock-strewn hill-slopes and in green, low-lying valleys, the chaseswept on: and one day, in one of the pleasant glades which, half-sunand half-shadow, stretch away to the Lebanon hills, young Bath Zabbaisuddenly reined in her horse in full view of one of the typical huntingscenes of those old days. A young Arabian hunter had enticed a bigmountain lion into one of the strong-meshed nets of stout palm fibres, then used for such purposes. His trained leopard or cheetah had drawnthe beast from his lair, and by cunning devices had led him on until theunfortunate lion was half-entrapped. Just then, with a sudden swoop, agreat golden eagle dashed down upon the preoccupied cheetah, and buriedhis talons in the leopard's head. But the weight of his victim wasmore than he had bargained for; the cheetah with a quick upward dashdislodged one of the great bird's talons, and, turning as quickly, caught the disengaged leg in his sharp teeth. At that instant the lion, springing at the struggling pair, started the fastenings of the net, which, falling upon the group, held all three prisoners. The eagle andthe lion thus ensnared sought to release themselves, but only ensnaredthemselves the more, while the cunning cheetah, versed in the knowledgeof the hunter's net, crept out from beneath the meshes as his masterraised them slightly, and with bleeding head crawled to him for praiseand relief. 

Then the girl, flushed with delight at this double capture, galloped tothe spot, and in that instant she recognized in the successful hunterher cousin the exile. 

"Well snared, my Odhainat, " she said, as, the first exclamation ofsurprise over, she stood beside the brown-faced and sturdy young hunter. "The Palmyrean leopard hath bravely trapped both the Roman eagle andthe Persian lion. See, is it not an omen from the gods? Face valor withvalor and craft with craft, O Odhainat! Have you forgotten the vow inyour father's palace full three years ago?"

Forgotten it? Not he. And then he told Bath Zabbai how in all hiswanderings he had kept their vow in mind, and with that, too, her otherwords of counsel, "Watch and Wait. " He told her that, far and wide, hewas known to all the Arabs of the desert and the Armenians of the hills, and how, from sheikh to camel-boy, the tribes were ready to join withPalmyra against both Rome and Persia. 

"Your time will indeed come, my Odhainat, " said the fearless girl, with proud looks and ringing voice. "See, even thus our omen gives theproof, " and she pointed to the net, beneath whose meshes both eagle andlion, fluttering and panting, lay wearied with their struggles, whilethe cheetah kept watch above them. "Now make your peace with Hairan, your brother; return to Palmyra once again, and still let us watch andwait. "

Three more years passed. Valerian, Emperor of Rome, leading his legionsto war with Sapor, whom men called the "Great King, " had fallen avictim to the treachery and traps of the Persian monarch, and was helda miserable prisoner in the Persian capital, where, richly robed in thepurple of the Roman emperors and loaded with chains, he was used bythe savage Persian tyrant as a living horse-block for the sport of anequally savage court. In Palmyra, Hairan was dead, and young Odhainat, his brother, was now Septimus Odaenathus--"headman" of the city and toall appearances the firm friend of Rome. 

There were great rejoicings in Palmyra when the wise Zenobia--stillscarce more than a girl--and the fearless young "head-man" of the desertrepublic were married in the marble city of the palm-trees, and hershrewd counsels brought still greater triumphs to Odaenathus and toPalmyra. 

In the great market-place or forum, Odaenathus and Zenobia awaited thereturn of their messengers to Sapor. For the "Great King, " having killedand stuffed the captive Roman Emperor, now turned his arms against theRoman power in the east and, destroying both Antioch and Emesa, lookedwith an evil eye toward Palmyra. Zenobia, remembering the omen of theeagle and the lion, repeated her counsel of facing craft with craft, and letters and gifts had been sent to Sapor, asking for peace andfriendship. There is a hurried entrance through the eastern gate ofthe city, and the messengers from the Palmyrean senate rush into theMarket-place. 

"Your presents to the Great King have been thrown into the river, OOdaenathus, " they reported, "and thus sayeth Sapor of Persia: 'Who isthis Odaenathus, that he should thus presume to write to his lord? If hewould obtain mitigation of the punishment that awaits him, let him fallprostrate before the foot of our throne, with his hands bound behind hisback. Unless he doeth this, he, his family, and his country shall surelyperish!'"

Swift to wrath and swifter still to act, Zenobia sprang to her feet. "Face force with force, Odaenathus. Be strong and sure, and Palmyrashall yet humble the Persian. "

Her advice was taken. Quickly collecting the troops of Palmyra and theArabs and Armenian who were his allies, the fearless "head-man" fellupon the army of the haughty Persian king, defeated and despoiled it, and drove it back to Persia. As Gibbon, the historian says: "The majestyof Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was protected by an Arab of Palmyra. "

For this he was covered with favors by Rome; made supreme commander inthe East, and, with Zenobia as his adviser and helper, each year madePalmyra stronger and more powerful. 

Here, rightly, the story of the girl Zenobia ends. A woman now, herlife fills one of the most brilliant pages of history. While her husbandconquered for Rome in the north, she, in his absence, governed so wiselyin the south as to insure the praise of all. And when the time was ripe, and Rome, ruled by weak emperors and harassed by wild barbarians, wasin dire stress, the childish vow of the boy and girl made years beforefound fulfilment. Palmyra was suddenly declared free from the dominionof Rome, and Odaenathus was acknowledged by senate and people as"Emperor and King of kings. "

But the hand of an assassin struck down the son as it had strickenthe father. Zenobia, ascending the throne of Palmyra, declared herself"Zenobia Augusta, the Empress of the East, " and, after the manner of hertime, extended her empire in every direction until, as the record says:"A small territory in the desert, under the government of a woman, extended its conquests over many rich countries and several states. Zenobia, lately confined to the barren plains about Palmyra, now heldsway from Egypt in the south, to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in thenorth. "

But a new emperor ruled in Rome: Aurelian, soldier and statesman. "Rome, " he said, "shall never lose a province. " And then the strugglefor dominion in the East began. The strength and power of Rome, directedby the Emperor himself, at last triumphed. Palmyra fell, and Zenobia, after a most heroic defence of her kingdom, was led a prisoner to Rome. Clad in magnificent robes, loaded with jewels and with heavy chainsof gold, she walked, regal and undaunted still, in the great triumphalprocession of her conqueror, and, disdaining to kill herself as didCleopatra and Dido, she gave herself up to the nobler work of theeducation and culture of her children, and led for many years, in hervilla at Tibur, the life of a noble Roman matron. 

Such, in brief, is the story of Zenobia. You must read for yourselvesthe record of her later years, as it stands in history, if you wouldknow more of her grandeur in her days of power, and her moral grandeurin her days of defeat. 

And with Zenobia fell Palmyra. Centuries of ruin and neglect have passedover the once fairy-like city of the Syrian oasis. Her temples andcolonnades, her monuments and archways and wonderful buildings areprostrate and decayed, and the site even of the glorious city has beenknown to the modern world only within the last century. But while timelasts and the record of heroic deeds survives, neither fallen column norruined arch nor all the destruction and neglect of modern barbarism canblot out the story of the life and worth of Bath Zabbai, the brave girlof the Syrian desert, whom all the world honors as the noblest woman ofantiquity--Zenobia of Palmyra, the dauntless "Queen of the East. "

HELENA OF BRITAIN: THE GIRL OF THE ESSEX FELLS. 

(Afterward known as "St. Helena, " the mother of Constantine. ) A. D. 255. 

Ever since that far-off day in the infancy of the world, when landsbegan to form and rivers to flow seaward, the little river Colne haswound its crooked way through the fertile fields of Essex eastward tothe broad North Sea. 

Through hill-land and through moor-land, past Moyns and Great Yeldham, past Halstead and Chappel and the walls of Colchester, turning now thisway and now that until it comes to Mersea Island and the sea, the littleriver flows to-day even as it sped along one pleasant summer morningsixteen hundred and forty years ago, when a little British princess, only fairly in her teens, reclined in comfortable contentment in hergilded barge and floated down the river from her father's palace atColchester to the strand at Wivanloe. 

For this little girl of fourteen, Helena, the princess, was a king'sdaughter, and, according to all accounts, a very bright and charminggirl besides--which all princesses have not been. Her father was Coel, second prince of Britain and king of that part of ancient England, whichincludes the present shires of Essex and of Suffolk, about the riverColne. 

Not a very large kingdom this, but even as small as it was, King Coeldid not hold it in undisputed sway. For he was one of the tributaryprinces of Britain, in the days when Roman arms, and Roman law, andRoman dress, and Roman manners, had place and power throughout England, from the Isle of Wight, to the Northern highlands, behind whoseforest-crowned hills those savage natives known as the Picts--"thetattooed folk"--held possession of ancient Scotland, and defied theeagles of Rome. 

The monotonous song of the rowers, keeping time with each dip of thebroad-bladed oars, rose and fell in answer to the beats of the master'ssilver baton, and Helena too followed the measure with the tap, tap, ofher sandaled foot. 

Suddenly there shot out around one of the frequent turns in the river, the gleam of other oars, the high prow of a larger galley, and acrossthe water came the oar-song of a larger company of rowers. Helenastarted to her feet. 

"Look, Cleon, " she cried, pointing, eagerly towards the approachingboat, "'t is my father's own trireme. Why this haste to return, think'stthou?"

"I cannot tell, little mistress, " replied the freedman Cleon, hergalley-master; "the king thy father must have urgent tidings, to makehim return thus quickly to Camalodunum. "

Both the girl and the galley-master spoke in Latin, for the language ofthe Empire was the language of those in authority or in official lifeeven in its remotest provinces, and the galley-master did but use thename which the Roman lords of Britain had given to the prosperous cityon the Colne, in which the native Prince, King Coel, had his court--thecity which to-day is known under its later Saxon name of Colchester. 

It was, indeed, a curious state of affairs in England. I doubt if manyof my girl and boy readers, no matter how, well they may stand intheir history classes, have ever thought of the England of Hereward andIvanhoe, of Paul Dombey and Tom Brown, as a Roman land. 

And yet at the time when this little Flavia Julia Helena was sailingdown the river Colne, the island of Britain, in its southern sectionat least, was almost as Roman in manner, custom, and speech as was Romeitself. 

For nearly five hundred years, from the days of Caesar the conqueror, to those of Honorius the unfortunate, was England, or Britain as it wascalled, a Roman province, broken only in its allegiance by the earlyrevolts of the conquered people or by the later usurpations of ambitiousand unprincipled governors. 

And, at the date of our story, in the year 255 A. D. , the beautifulisland had so far grown out of the barbarisms of ancient Britain as tohave long since forgotten the gloomy rites and open-air altars of theDruids, and all the half-savage surroundings of those stern old priests. 

Everywhere Roman temples testified to the acceptance by the people ofthe gods of Rome, and little Helena herself each morning hung the altarof the emperor-god Claudius with garlands in the stately temple whichhad been built in his honor in her father's palace town, asked theprotection of Cybele, "the Heavenly Virgin, " and performed the ritesthat the Empire demanded for "the thousand gods of Rome. "

Throughout the land, south of the massive wall which the great EmperorHadrian had stretched across the island from the mouth of the Solway tothe mouth of the Tyne, the people themselves who had gathered into orabout the thirty growing Roman cities which the conquerors had foundedand beautified, had become Roman in language, religion, dress, and ways, while the educational influences of Rome, always following the course ofher conquering eagles, had planted schools and colleges throughout theland, and laid the foundation for that native learning which in lateryears was to make the English nation so great and powerful. 

And what a mighty empire must have been that of Rome that, in thosefar-off days, when rapid transit was unknown, and steam and electricityboth lay dormant, could have entered into the lives of two bright youngmaidens so many leagues removed from one another--Zenobia, the duskyPalmyrean of the East, and Helena, the fresh-faced English girl of theWest. 

But to such distant and widely separated confines had this power of thevast Empire extended; and to this thoughtful young princess, driftingdown the winding English river, the sense of Roman supremacy and powerwould come again and again. 

For this charming young girl--said, later, to have been the mostbeautiful woman of her time in England--though reared to Roman ways andRoman speech, had too well furnished a mind not to think for herself. "She spake, " so says the record, "many tongues and was replete withpiety. " The only child of King Coel, her doting old father had givenher the finest education that Rome could offer. She was, even before shegrew to womanhood, so we are told, a fine musician, a marvellous workerin tapestry, in hammered brass and pottery, and was altogether as wiseand wonderful a young woman as even these later centuries can show. 

But, for all this grand education, she loved to hear the legends andstories of her people that in various ways would come to her ears, either as the simple tales of her British nurse, or in the wild songs ofthe wandering bards, or singers. 

As she listened to these she thought less of those crude and barbaricways of her ancestors that Rome had so vastly bettered than of theirnational independence and freedom from the galling yoke of Rome, and, as was natural, she cherished the memory of Boadicea, the warrior queen, and made a hero of the fiery young Caractacus. 

It is always so, you know. Every bright young imagination is apt to findgreater glories in the misty past, or grander possibilities in a stillmore misty future than in the too practical and prosaic present in whichboth duty and destiny lie. And so Helena the princess, Leaning againstthe soft cushions of her gilded barge, had sighed for the days of theold-time British valor and freedom, and, even as she looked off towardthe approaching triareme, she was wondering how she could awake tothoughts of British glory her rather heavy-witted father, Coel theKing--an hereditary prince of that ancient Britain in which he was now, alas, but a tributary prince of the all too powerful Rome. 

Now, "old King Cole, " as Mother Goose tells us--for young Helena'sfather was none other than the veritable "old King Cole" of our nurseryjingle--was a "jolly old soul, " and a jolly old soul is very rarely anindependent or ambitious one. So long as he could have "his pipe and hisbowl" not, of course, his long pipe of tobacco that all the MotherGoose artists insist upon giving him--but the reed pipe upon which hismusicians played--so long, in other words, as he could live in ease andcomfort, undisturbed in his enjoyment of the good things of life by hisRoman over-lords, he cared for no change. Rome took the responsibilityand he took things easily. But this very day, while his daughter Helenawas floating down the river to meet him on the strand at Wivanloe, hewas returning from an unsuccessful boar-hunt in the Essex woods, verymuch out of sorts--cross because he had not captured the big boar hehad hoped to kill, cross because his favorite musicians had been"confiscated" by the Roman governor or propraetor at Londinium (asLondon was then called), and still more cross because he had that dayreceived dispatches from Rome demanding a special and unexpected taxlevy, or tribute, to meet the necessary expenses of the new EmperorDiocletian. 

Something else had happened to increase his ill temper. His "jolly oldsoul, " vexed by the numerous crosses of the day, was thrown into stillgreater perplexity by the arrival, just as he stood fretful and chafingon the shore at Wivanloe, of one who even now was with himon the trireme, bearing him company back to his palace atCamolodunum--Carausius the admiral. 

This Carausius, the admiral, was an especially vigorous, valorous, andfiery young fellow of twenty-one. He was cousin to the Princess Helenaand a prince of the blood royal of ancient Britain. Educated under thestrict military system of Rome, he had risen to distinction in the navalforce of the Empire, and was now the commanding officer in the northernfleet that had its central station at Gessoriacum, now Boulogne, on thenorthern coast of France. He had chased and scattered the German pirateswho had so long ravaged the northern seas, had been named by the Emperoradmiral of the north, and was the especial pride, as he was the dashingyoung leader, of the Roman sailors along the English Channel and theGerman shores. 

The light barge of the princess approached the heavier boat of the king, her father. At her signal the oarsmen drew up alongside, and, scarcewaiting for either boat to more than slacken speed, the nimble-footedgirl sprang lightly to the deck of her father's galley. Then biddingthe obedient Cleon take her own barge back to the palace, she hurried atonce, and without question, like the petted only child she was, into thehigh-raised cabin at the stern, where beneath the Roman standards sather father the king. 

Helena entered the apartment at a most exciting moment. For there, facing her portly old father, whose clouded face bespoke his troubledmind, stood her trimly-built young cousin Carausius the admiral, bronzedwith his long exposure to the sea-blasts, a handsome young viking, and, in the eyes of the hero-loving Helen, very much of a hero because of hisacknowledged daring and his valorous deeds. 

Neither man seemed to have noticed the sudden entrance of the girl, sodeep were they in talk. 

"I tell thee, uncle, " the hot-headed admiral was saying, "it is beyondlonger bearing. This new emperor--this Diocletian--who is he to dare todictate to a prince of Britain? A foot-soldier of Illyria, the son ofslaves, and the client of three coward emperors; an assassin, so ithath been said, who from chief of the domestics, hath become by his owncunning Emperor of Rome, And now hath he dared to accuse me--me, a freeBriton and a Roman citizen as well, a prince and the son of princes, with having taken bribes from these German pirates whom I havevanquished. He hath openly said that I, Carausius the admiral, havefilled mine own coffers while neglecting the revenues of the state. Iwill not bear it. I am a better king than he, did I but have my ownjust rights, and even though he be Diocletian the Emperor, he needeth tothink twice before he dare accuse a prince of Britain with bribe-takingand perjury. "

"True enough, good nephew, " said King Coel, as the admiral strode up anddown before him, angrily playing with the hilt of his short Roman sword, "true enough, and I too have little cause to love this low-born emperor. He hath taken from me both my players and my gold, when I can illy spareeither from my comfort or my necessities. 'T is a sad pass for Britain. But Rome is mistress now. What may we hope to do?"

The Princess Helena sprang to her father's side, her young face flushed, her small hand raised in emphasis. "Do!" cried she, and the look ofdefiance flamed on her fair young face. "Do! Is it thou, my father, thou, my cousin, princes of Britain both, that ask so weak a question?O that I were a man! What did that brave enemy of our house, Cassivellaunus, do? what Caractacus? what the brave queen Boadicea?When the Roman drove them to despair they raised the standard of revolt, sounded their battle cries, and showed the Roman that British freemencould fight to the death for their country and their home. And thusshould we do, without fear or question, and see here again in Britain avictorious kingdom ruled once more by British kings. "

"Nay, nay, my daughter, " said cautious King Coel, "your words are thoseof an unthinking girl. The power of Rome----"

But the Prince Carausius, as the girl's brave words rang out, gave heran admiring glance, and, crossing to where she stood, laid his handapprovingly upon her shoulder. 

"The girl is right, uncle, " he said, breaking in upon the king'scautious speech. "Too long have we bowed the neck to Roman tyranny. We, free princes of Britain that we are, have it even now in our power tostand once again as altogether free. The fleet is mine, the people areyours, if you will but amuse them. Our brothers are groaning underthe load of Roman tribute, and are ripe to strike. Raise the cry atCamalodunum, my uncle; cry: 'Havoc and death to Rome!' My fleet shallpour its victorious sailors upon the coast; the legions, even now fullof British fighters, shall flock to out united standards, and we shallrule--Emperors in the North, even as do the Roman conquerors ruleEmperors in the South. "

Young blood often sways and leads in council and in action, especiallywhen older minds are over-cautious or sluggish in decision. The wordsof Carausius and Helena carried the day with Coel the king, alreadysmarting under a sense of ill-treatment by his Roman over-lords. 

The standard of revolt was raised in Camalodunum. The young admiralhurried back to France to make ready his fleet, while Coel the king, spurred on to action by the patriotic Helena, who saw herself anotherBoadicea--though, in truth, a younger and much fairer one--gathered ahasty following, won over to his cause the British-filled legion in hispalace-town, and, descending upon the nearest Roman camps and stations, surprised, captured, scattered, or brought over their soldiers, andproclaimed himself free from the yoke of Rome and supreme prince ofBritain. 

Ambition is always selfish. Even when striving for the general goodthere lies, too often, beneath this noble motive the still deeper one ofselfishness. Carausius the admiral, though determined upon kingly power, had no desire for a divided supremacy. He was determined to besole emperor, or none. Crafty and unscrupulous, although brave andhigh-spirited, he deemed it wisest to delay his part of the compactuntil he should see how it fared with his uncle, the king, and then, upon his defeat, to climb to certain victory. 

He therefore sent to his uncle promises instead of men, and whensummoned by the Roman governor to assist in putting down the revolt, hereturned loyal answers, but sent his aid to neither party. 

King Coel after his first successes knew that, unaided, he could nothope to withstand the Roman force that must finally be brought againsthim. Though urged to constant action by his wise young daughter, hepreferred to do nothing; and, satisfied with the acknowledgment of hispower in and about his little kingdom on the Colne, he spent his time inhis palace with the musicians that he loved so well, and the big bowl ofliquor that he loved, it is to be feared, quite as dearly. 

The musicians--the pipers and the harpers--sang his praises, and told ofhis mighty deeds, and, no doubt, their refrain was very much the same asthe one that has been preserved for us in the jingle of Mother Goose:

 "O, none so rare as can compare With King Cole and his fiddlers three. "

But if the pleasure-loving old king was listless, young Helena was not. The misty records speak of her determined efforts, and though it is hardto understand how a girl of fifteen can do any thing toward successfulgeneralship, much can be granted to a young lady who, if the recordsspeak truth, was, even while a girl, "a Minerva in wisdom, and notdeficient in statecraft. "

So, while she advised with her father's boldest captains andstrengthened so wisely the walls of ancient Colchester, or Camalodunum, that traces of her work still remain as proof of her untiring zeal, shestill cherished the hope of British freedom and release from Rome. Andthe loving old king, deep in his pleasures, still recognized the willand wisdom of his valiant daughter, and bade his artists make in herhonor a memorial that should ever speak of her valor. And this memorial, lately unearthed, and known as the Colchester Sphinx, perpetuates thelion-like qualities of a girl in her teens, who dared withstand thepower of Imperial Rome. 

And still no help came from her cousin, the admiral. But one day agalley speeding up the Colne brought this unsigned message to King Coel:

"To Coel, Camalodunum, Greeting:

"Save thyself. Constantius the sallow-faced, prefect of the Westernpraetorians, is even now on his way from Spain to crush thy revolt. Savethyself. I wait. Justice will come. "

"Thou seest, O daughter, " said King Coel as Helena read the cravenmissive, "the end cometh as I knew it would. Well, man can but die. " Andwith this philosophic reflection the "jolly old soul" only dipped hisred nose still deeper into his big bowl, and bade his musicians playtheir loudest and merriest. 

But Helena, "not deficient in statecraft, " thought for both. She wouldsave her father, her country, and herself, and shame her disloyalcousin. Discretion is the better part of valor. Let us see how discreeta little lady was this fair young Princess Helena. 

The legions came to Camalodunum. Across Gaul and over the choppy channelthey came, borne by the very galleys that were to have succored theBritish king. Up through the mouth of Thames they sailed, and landingat Londinium, marched in close array along the broad Roman road that ledstraight up to the gates of Camalodunum. Before the walls of Camalodunumwas pitched the Roman camp, and the British king was besieged in his ownpalace-town. 

The Roman trumpets sounded before the gate of the beleaguered city, andthe herald of the prefect, standing out from his circle of guards, criedthe summons to surrender:

"Coel of Britain, traitor to the Roman people and to thy lord theEmperor, hear thou! In the name of the Senate and People of Rome, I, Constantius the prefect, charge thee to deliver up to them ere thisday's sun shall set, this, their City of Camalodunum, and thine ownrebel body as well. Which done they will in mercy pardon the crime oftreason to the city, and will work their will and punishment only uponthee--the chief rebel. And if this be not done within the appointedtime, then will the walls of this their town of Camalodunum beoverthrown, and thou and all thy people be given the certain death oftraitors. "

King Coel heard the summons, and some spark of that very patriotismthat had inspired and incited his valiant little daughter flamed in hisheart. He would have returned an answer of defiance. "I can at least diewith my people, " he said, but young Helena interposed. 

"Leave this to me, my father, " she said. "As I have been the cause, solet me be the end of trouble. Say to the prefect that in three hours'time the British envoy will come to his camp with the king's answer tohis summons. "

The old king would have replied otherwise, but his daughter'sentreaties and the counsels of his captains who knew the hopelessnessof resistance, forced him to assent, and his herald made answeraccordingly. 

Constantius the prefect--a manly, pleasant looking young commander, called Chlorus or "the sallow, " from his pale face, --sat in his tentwithin the Roman camp. The three hours' grace allowed had scarcelyexpired when his sentry announced the arrival of the envoy of Coel ofBritain. 

"Bid him enter, " said the prefect. Then, as the curtains of his tentwere drawn aside, the prefect started in surprise, for there before himstood, not the rugged form of a British fighting man, but a fair younggirl, who bent her graceful head in reverent obeisance to the youthfulrepresentative of the Imperial Caesars. 

"What would'st thou with me, maiden?" asked the prefect. 

"I am the daughter of Coel of Britain, " said the girl, "and I am come tosue for pardon and for peace. "

"The Roman people have no quarrel with the girls of Britain, " said theprefect. "Hath then King Coel fallen so low in state that a maiden mustplead for him?"

"He hath not fallen at all, O Prefect, " replied the girl proudly; "theking, my father, would withstand thy force but that I, his daughter, know the cause of this unequal strife, and seek to make terms with thevictors. "

The girl's fearlessness pleased the prefect, for Constantius Chlorus wasa humane and gentle man, fierce enough in fight, but seeking never toneedlessly wound an enemy or lose a friend. 

"And what are thy terms, fair envoy of Britain?" he demanded. 

"These, O Prefect, " replied Helena, "If but thou wilt remove thy cohortsto Londinium, I pledge my father's faith and mine, that he will, withinfive days, deliver to thee as hostage for his fealty, myself and twentychildren of his councillors and captains. And further, I, Helena theprincess, will bind myself to deliver up to thee, with the hostages, thechief rebel in this revolt, and the one to whose counselling this strifewith Rome is due. "

Both the matter and the manner of the offered terms still furtherpleased the prefect, and he said: "Be it so, Princess. " Then summoninghis lieutenant, he said: "Conduct the envoy of Coel of Britain with allcourtesy to the gates of the the city, " and with a herald's escort thegirl returned to her father. 

Again the old king rebelled at the terms his daughter had made. 

"I know the ways of Rome, " he said. "I know what their mercy meaneth. Thou shalt never go as hostage for my faith, O daughter, nor carry outthis hazardous plan. "

"I have pledged my word and thine, O King, " said Helena. "Surely aBriton's pledge should be as binding as a Roman's. "

So she carried her point, and, in five days' time, she, with twenty ofthe boys and girls of Camalodunum, went as hostages to the Roman camp inLondon. 

"Here be thy hostages, fair Princess, " said Constantius the prefect ashe received the children; "and this is well. But remember the rest ofthy compact. Deliver to me now, according to thy promise, the chiefrebel against Rome. "

"She is here, O Prefect, " said the intrepid girl. "I am thatrebel--Helena of Britain!"

The smile upon the prefect's face changed to sudden sternness. 

"Trifle not with Roman justice, girl, " he said, "I demand the keeping ofthy word. "

"It is kept, " replied the princess. "Helena of Britain is the cause andmotive of this revolt against Rome. If it be rebellion for a free princeto claim his own, if it be rebellion for a prince to withstand forthe sake of his people the unjust demands of the conqueror, if it berebellion for one who loveth her father to urge that father to valiantdeeds in defence of the liberties of the land over which he ruleth asking, then am I a rebel, for I have done all these, and only becauseof my words did the king, my father, take up arms against the might andpower of Rome. I am the chief rebel. Do with me as thou wilt. "

And now the prefect saw that the girl spoke the truth, and that she hadindeed kept her pledge. 

"Thy father and his city are pardoned, " he announced after a few momentsof deliberation. "Remain thou here, thou and thy companions, as hostagesfor Britain, until such time as I shall determine upon the punishmentdue to one who is so fierce a rebel against the power of Rome. "

So the siege of Camalodunum was raised, and the bloodless rebellionended. Constantius the prefect took up his residence for a while withinKing Coel's city, and at last returned to his command in Gaul and Spain, well pleased with the spirit of the little maiden whom, so he claimed, he still held in his power as the prisoner of Rome. 

Constantius the prefect came again to Britain, and with a greaterfollowing, fully ten years after King Coel's revolt, for now, again, rebellion was afoot in the island province. 

Carausius the admiral, biding his time, sought at last to carry out hisscheme of sole supremacy. Sailing with his entire war-fleet to Britain, he won the legions to his side, proclaimed himself Emperor of Britain, and defied the power of Rome. 

So daring and successful was his move that Rome for a time waspowerless. Carausius was recognized as "associate" emperor by Rome, until such time as she should be ready to punish his rebellion, and forseven years he reigned as emperor of Britain. 

But ere this came to pass, Helena the princess had gone over to Gaul, and had become the wife of Constantius the prefect, --"Since only thus, "said he, "may I keep in safe custody this prisoner of Rome. "

The imperial power of Carausius was but short-lived. Crafty himself, he fell a victim to the craft of others, and the sword of Allectus, his chief minister and most trusted confidant, ended his life whenonce again the power of Rome seemed closing about the little kingdom ofBritain. 

Constantius became governor of Britain, and finally caesar and emperor. But, long before that day arrived, the Princess Helena had grown into aloyal Roman wife and mother, dearly loving her little son Constantine, who, in after years, became the first and greatest Christian emperor ofRome. 

She bestowed much loving care upon her native province of Britain. Shebecame a Christian even before her renowned son had his historicvision of the flaming cross. When more than eighty years old she made apilgrimage to the Holy Land. There she did many good and kindly deeds, erected temples above the Sepulchre of the Saviour, at his birthplaceat Bethlehem, and on the Mount of Olives. She is said, also, to havediscovered upon Calvary the cross, upon which had suffered and died theSaviour she had learned to worship. 

Beloved throughout her long and useful life she was canonized after herdeath, and is now recognized one of the saints of the Romish church. 

To-day in the city of London you may see the memorial church reared toher memory--the Church of Great St. Helena, in Bishopgate. A loving, noble, wonderful, and zealous woman, she is a type of the brave younggirlhood of the long ago, and, however much of fiction there may bemingled with the fact of her life-story, she was, we may feel assured, all that the chroniclers have claimed for her--"one of the grandestwomen of the earlier centuries. "

PULCHERIA of CONSTANTINOPLE: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN HORN

(Afterward known as "Pulcheria Augusta, Empress of the East. ") A. D. 413. 

There was trouble and confusion in the imperial palace of Theodosiusthe Little, Emperor of the East. Now, this Theodosius was called "theLittle" because, though he bore the name of his mighty grandfather, Theodosius the Great, emperor of both the East and West, he had as yetdone nothing worthy any other title than that of "the Little, " or "theChild. " For Theodosius emperor though he was called, was only a boy oftwelve, and not a very bright boy at that. 

His father, Arcadius the emperor, and his mother, Eudoxia the empress, were dead; and in the great palace at Constantinople, in this yearof grace, 413, Theodosius, the boy emperor, and his three sisters, Pulcheria, Marina, and Arcadia, alone were left to uphold the totteringdignity and the empty name of the once mighty Empire of the East, whichtheir great ancestors, Constantine and Theodosius, had established andstrengthened. 

And now there was confusion in the imperial palace; for word came inhaste from the Dacian border that Ruas, king of the Huns, sweeping downfrom the east, was ravaging the lands along the Upper Danube, and withhis host of barbarous warriors was defeating the legions and devastatingthe lands of the empire. 

The wise Anthemius, prefect of the east, and governor or guardian ofthe young emperor, was greatly disturbed by the tidings of this newinvasion. Already he had repelled at great cost the first advance ofthese terrible Huns, and had quelled into a sort of half submission theless ferocious followers of Ulpin the Thracian; but now he knew that hisarmies along the Danube were in no condition to withstand the hordes ofHuns, that, pouring in from distant Siberia, were following the leadof Ruas, their king, for plunder and booty, and were even now encampedscarce two hundred and fifty miles from the seven gates and the triplewalls of splendid Constantinople. 

Turbaned Turks, mosques and minarets, muftis and cadis, veiled easternladies, Mohammedains and muezzins, Arabian Nights and attar of roses, bazars, dogs, and donkeys--these, I suppose, are what Constantinoplesuggests whenever its name is mentioned to any girl or boy ofto-day, --the capital of modern Turkey, the city of the Sublime Porte. But the greatest glory of Constantinople was away back in the early daysbefore the time of Mohammed, or of the Crusaders, when it was the centreof the Christian religion, the chief and gorgeous capital of a Christianempire, and the residence of Christian emperors, --from the days ofConstantine the conqueror to those of Justinian the law-giver and ofIrene the empress. It was the metropolis of the eastern half of thegreat Roman Empire, and during this period of over five hundred yearsall the wealth and treasure of the east poured into Constantinople, while all the glories of the empire, even the treasures of old Romeitself, were drawn upon to adorn and beautify this rival city by theGolden Horn. And so in the days of Theodosius the Little, the court ofConstantinople, although troubled with fear of a barbarian invasionand attack, glittered with all the gorgeousness and display of the mostmagnificent empire in the world. 

In the great daphne, or central space of the imperial palace, theprefect Anthemius, with the young emperor, the three princesses, andtheir gorgeously arrayed nobles and attendants, awaited, one day, theenvoys of Ruas the Hun, who sought lands and power within the limits ofthe empire. 

They came, at last, --great, fierce-looking fellows, not at all pleasantto contemplate--big-boned broad-shouldered, flat-nosed, swarthy, and small-eyed, with war-cloaks of shaggy skins, leathern armor, wolf-crowned helmets, and barbaric decorations, and the royal childrenshrunk from them in terror, even as they watched them with wonderingcuriosity. Imperial guards, gleaming in golden armor, accompanied them, while with the envoys came also as escort a small retinue of Hunnishspearmen. And in the company of these, the Princess Pulcheria noted alad of ten or twelve years--short, swarthy, big-headed, and flat-nosed, like his brother barbarians, but with an air of open and hostilesuperiority that would not be moved even by all the glow and glitter ofan imperial court. 

Then Eslaw, the chief of the envoys of King Ruas the Hun, made known hismaster's demands So much land, so much treasure, so much in the way ofconcession and power over the lands along the Danube, or Ruas the kingwould sweep down with his warriors, and lay waste the cities and landsof the empire. 

"These be bold words, " said Anthemius the prefect. "And what if our lordthe emperor shall say thee nay?"

But ere the chief of the envoys could reply, the lad whose presencein the escort the Princess Pulcheria had noted, sprang into the circlebefore the throne, brandishing his long spear in hot defiance. 

"Dogs and children of dogs, ye dare not say us nay!" he cried harshly. "Except we be made the friends and allies of the emperor, and are givenfull store of southern gold and treasure, Ruas the king shall overturnthese your palaces, and make you all captives and slaves. It shall bewar between you and us forever. Thus saith my spear!"

And as he spoke he dashed his long spear upon the floor, until themosaic pavement rang again. 

Boy emperor and princesses, prefect and nobles and imperial guards, sprang to their feet as the spear clashed on the pavement, and eventhe barbarian envoys, while they smiled grimly at their young comrade'senergy, pulled him hastily back. 

But ere the prefect Anthemius could sufficiently master his astonishmentto reply, the young Princess Pulcheria faced the savage envoys, andpointing to the cause of the disturbance, asked calmly:

"Who is this brawling boy, and what doth he here in the palace of theemperor?"

And the boy made instant and defiant answer:

"I am Attila, the son of Mundzuk, kinsman to Ruas the king, and deadlyfoe to Rome. "

"Good Anthemius, " said the clear, calm voice of the unterrified girl, "were it not wise to tell this wild young prince from the northernforest that the great emperor hath gold for his friends, but only ironfor his foes? 'T is ever better to be friend than foe. Bid, I pray, thatthe arras of the Hippodrome be parted, and let our guests see the mightand power of our arms. "

With a look of pleased surprise at this bold stroke of the Princess, theprefect clapped his hands in command, and the heavily brocaded curtainthat screened the gilded columns parted as if by unseen hands, and theHunnish envoys, with a gaze of stolid wonder, looked down upon the greatHippodrome of Constantinople. 

It was a vast enclosure, spacious enough for the marshalling of anarmy. Around its sides ran tiers of marble seats, and all about it rosegleaming statues of marble, of bronze, of silver, and of gold--Augustusand the emperors, gods and goddesses of the old pagan days, heroes ofthe eastern and western empires. The bright oriental sun streamed downupon it, and as the trumpets sounded from beneath the imperial balcony, there filed into the arena the glittering troops of the empire, gorgeousin color and appointments, with lofty crests and gleaming armor, withshimmering spear-tips, prancing horses, towering elephants, and mightyengines of war and siege, with archers and spearmen, with soundingtrumpets and swaying standards and, high over all, the purple labarum, woven in gold and jewels, --the sacred banner of Constantine. Marchingand counter-marching, around and around, and in and out, until it seemedwellnigh endless, the martial procession passed before the eyes of thenorthern barbarians, watchful of every movement, eager as children towitness this royal review. 

"These are but as a handful of dust amid the sands of the sea to thetroops of the empire, " said the prefect Anthemius, when the glitteringrear-guard had passed from the Hippodrome. And the Princess Pulcheriaadded, "And these, O men from the north, are to help and succor thefriends of the great emperor, even as they are for the terror anddestruction of his foes. Bid the messengers from Ruas the king consider, good Anthemius, whether it were not wiser for their master to be thefriend rather than the foe of the emperor. Ask him whether it would notbe in keeping with his valor and his might to be made one of the greatcaptains of the empire, with a yearly stipend of many pounds of gold, asthe recompense of the emperor for his services and his love. "

Again the prefect looked with pleasure and surprise upon this wise younggirl of fifteen, who had seen so shrewdly and so well the way to thehearts of these northern barbarians, to whom gold and warlike displaywere as meat and drink. 

"You hear the words of this wise young maid, " he said. "Would it notplease Ruas the king to be the friend of the emperor, a general of theempire, and the acceptor, on each recurring season of the Circensiangames, of full two hundred pounds of gold as recompense for service andfriendship?"

"Say, rather, three hundred pounds, " said Eslaw, the chief of theenvoys, "and our master may, perchance, esteem it wise and fair. "

"Nay, it is not for the great emperor to chaffer with his friends, " saidPulcheria, the princess. "Bid that the stipend be fixed at three hundredand fifty pounds of gold, good Anthemius, and let our guests bear toRuas the king pledges and tokens of the emperor's friendship. "

"And bid, too, that they do leave yon barbarian boy at our court ashostage of their faith, " demanded young Theodosius the emperor, nowspeaking for the first time and making a most stupid blunder at acritical moment. 

For, with a sudden start of revengeful indignation, young Attila theHun turned to the boy emperor: "I will be no man's hostage, " he cried. "Freely I came, freely will I go! Come down from thy bauble of a chairand thou and I will try, even in your circus yonder, which is the betterboy, and which should rightly be hostage for faith and promise given

"How now!" exclaimed the boy emperor, altogether unused to suchuncourtier-like language; "this to me!" And the hasty young Huncontinued:

"Ay, this and more! I tell thee, boy, that were I Ruas the king, thegrass should never grow where the hoofs of my war-horse trod; Scythiashould be mine; Persia should be mine; Rome should be mine. And lookyou, sir emperor, the time shall surely come when the king of the Hunsshall be content not with paltry tribute and needless office, but withnaught but Roman treasure and Roman slaves!"

But into this torrent of words came Pulcheria's calm voice again. "Nay, good Attila, and nay, my brother and my lord, " she said. "'T were notbetween friends and allies to talk of tribute, nor of slaves, nor yetof hostage. Freely did'st thou come and as freely shalt thou go; and letthis pledge tell of friendship between Theodosius the emperor and Ruasthe king. " And, with a step forward, she flung her own broad chain ofgold around the stout and swarthy neck of the defiant young Attila. 

So, through a girl's ready tact and quiet speech, was the terror ofbarbarian invasion averted. Ruas the Hun rested content for years withhis annual salary of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, or overseventy thousand dollars, and his title of General of the Empire; whilenot for twenty years did the hot-headed young Attila make good histhreat against the Roman power. 

Anthemius the prefect, like the wise man he was, recognized the worthof the young Princess Pulcheria; he saw how great was her influence overher brother the emperor, and noted with astonishment and pleasure herwords of wisdom and her rare common-sense. 

"Rule thou in my place, O Princess!" he said, soon after this interviewwith the barbarian envoys. "Thou alone, of all in this broad empire, artbest fitted to take lead and direction in the duties of its governing. "

Pulcheria, though a wise young girl, was prudent and conscientious. 

"Such high authority is not for a girl like me, good Anthemius, " shereplied. "Rather let me shape the ways and the growth of the emperormy brother, and teach him how best to maintain himself in a deportmentbefitting his high estate, so that he may become a wise and justruler; but do thou bear sway for him until such time as he may take theguidance on himself. "

"Nay, not so, Princess, " the old prefect said. "She who can shape theways of a boy may guide the will of an empire. Be thou, then, Regent andAugusta, and rule this empire as becometh the daughter of Arcadius andthe granddaughter of the great Theodosius. "

And as he desired, so it was decided. The Senate of the East decreedit and, in long procession, over flower-strewn pavements and throughgorgeously decorated streets, with the trumpets sounding their loudest, with swaying standards, and rank upon rank of imperial troops, withgreat officers of the government and throngs of palace attendants, this young girl of sixteen, on the fourth day of July, in the year 414, proceeded to the Church of the Holy Apostles, and was there publiclyproclaimed Pulcheria Augusta, Regent of the East, solemnly accepting thetrust as a sacred and patriotic duty. 

And, not many days after, before the high altar of this same Churchof the Holy Apostles, Pulcheria the princess stood with her youngersisters, Arcadia and Marina, and with all the impressive ceremonialof the Eastern Church, made a solemn vow to devote their lives to thekeeping of their father's heritage and the assistance of their onlybrother; to forswear the world and all its allurements; never to marry;and to be in all things faithful and constant to each other in thistheir promise and their pledge. 

And they were faithful and constant. The story of those three determinedyoung maidens, yet scarcely "in their teens, " reads almost like a pagefrom Tennyson's beautiful poem, "The Princess, " with which many of mygirl readers are doubtless familiar. The young regent and her sisters, with their train of attendant maidens, renounced the vanity ofdress--wearing only plain and simple robes; they spent their timein making garments for the poor, and embroidered work for churchdecorations; and with song and prayer and frugal meals, interspersedwith frequent fasts, they kept their vow to "forswear the world and itsallurements, " in an altogether strict and monotonous manner. Of coursethis style of living is no more to be recommended to healthy, hearty, fun-loving girls of fifteen than is its extreme of gayety andindulgence, but it had its effect in those bad old days of dissipationand excess, and the simplicity and soberness of this wise young girl'slife in the very midst of so much power and luxury, made even the worstelements in the empire respect and honor her. 

It would be interesting, did space permit, to sketch at length someof the devisings and doings of this girl regent of sixteen. "Shesuperintended with extraordinary wisdom, " says the old chroniclerSozemon, "the transactions of the Roman government, " and "afforded thespectacle, " says Ozanam, a later historian, "of a girlish princess ofsixteen, granddaughter and sole inheritor of the genius and courage ofTheodosius the Great, governing the empires of the east and west, andbeing proclaimed on the death of her brother, Augusta, Imperatrix, andmistress of the world!"

This last event--the death of Theodosius the Younger--occurred inthe year 449, and Pulcheria ascended the golden throne ofConstantinople--the first woman that ever ruled as sole empress of theRoman world. 

She died July 18, 453. That same year saw the death of her youthfulacquaintance, Attila the Hun, that fierce barbarian whom men had calledthe "Scourge of God. " His mighty empire stretched from the great wallof China to the Western Alps; but, though he ravaged the lands of botheastern and western Rome, he seems to have been so managed or controlledby the wise and peaceful measures of the girl regent, that hisdestroying hordes never troubled the splendid city by the Golden Hornwhich offered so rare and tempting a booty. 

It is not given to the girls of to-day to have any thing like themagnificent opportunities of the young Pulcheria. But duty in many aform faces them again and again, while not unfrequently the occasioncomes for sacrifice of comfort or for devotion to a trust. To all suchthe example of this fair young princess of old Constantinople, who, fifteen centuries ago, saw her duty plainly and undertook it simply andwithout hesitation, comes to strengthen and incite; and the girl whofeels herself overwhelmed by responsibility, or who is fearful of herown untried powers, may gather strength, courage, wisdom, and will fromthe story of this historic girl of the long ago--the wise young Regentof the East, Pulcheria of Constantinople. 

CLOTILDA OF BURGANDY: THE GIRL OF THE FRENCH VINYARDS

(Afterward known as "St. Clotilda, " the first Queen of France. ) A. D. 485. 

It was little more than fourteen hundred years ago, in the year of ourLord 485, that a little girl crouched trembling and terrified, at thefeet of a pitying priest in the palace of the kings of Burgundy. Therehas been many a sad little maid of ten, before and since the days ofthe fair-haired Princess Clotilda, but surely none had greater cause forterror and tears than she. For her cruel uncle, Gundebald, waging waragainst his brother Chilperic, the rightful king of Burgundy, had with aband of savage followers burst into his brother's palace and, after thefierce and relentless fashion of those cruel days, had murdered KingChilperic, the father of little Clotilda, the queen, her mother, andthe young princes, her brothers; and was now searching for her and hersister Sedelenda, to kill them also. 

Poor Sedelenda had hidden away in some other far-off corner; but even asClotilda hung for protection to the robe of the good stranger-priest Ugoof Rheims (whom the king, her father, had lodged in the palace, on hishomeward journey from Jerusalem), the clash of steel drew nearer andnearer. Through the corridor came the rush of feet, the arras in thedoorway was rudely flung aside, and the poor child's fierce pursuers, with her cruel uncle at their head, rushed into the room. 

"Hollo! Here hides the game!" he cried in savage exultation. "Thrust heraway, Sir Priest, or thou diest in her stead. Not one of the tyrant'sbrood shall live. I say it!"

"And who art thou to judge of life or death?" demanded the prieststernly, as he still shielded the trembling child. 

"I am Gundebald, King of Burgundy by the grace of mine own good swordand the right of succession, " was the reply. "Trifle not with me, SirPriest, but thrust away the child. She is my lawful prize to do with asI will. Ho, Sigebert, drag her forth!"

Quick as a flash the brave priest stepped before, the cowering child, and, with one hand still resting protectingly on the girl's fair hair, he raised the other in stern and fearless protest, and boldly faced themurderous throng. 

"Back, men of blood!" he cried. "Back! Nor dare to lay hand on thisyoung maid who hath here sought sanctuary!"(1)

(1) Under the Goths and Franks the protection of churches and priests, when extended to persons in peril, was called the "right of sanctuary, "and was respected even by the fiercest of pursuers. 

Fierce and savage men always respect bravery in others. There wassomething so courageous and heroic in the act of that single priestin thus facing a ferocious and determined band, in defence of alittle girl, --for girls were but slightingly regarded in those far-offdays, --that it caught the savage fancy of the cruel king. And this, joined with his respect for the Church's right of sanctuary, and withthe lessening of his thirst for blood, now that he had satisfied hisfirst desire for revenge, led him to desist. 

"So be it then, " he said, lowering his threatening sword. "I yield herto thee, Sir Priest. Look to her welfare and thine own. Surely a girlcan do no harm. "

But King Gundebald and his house lived to learn how far wrong was thatunguarded statement. For the very lowering of the murderous sword thatthus brought life to the little Princess Clotilda meant the downfall ofthe kingdom of Burgundy and the rise of the great and victorious nationof France. The memories of even a little maid of ten are not easilyblotted out. 

Her sister, Sedelenda, had found refuge and safety in the convent ofAinay, near at hand, and there, too, Clotilda would have gone, but heruncle, the new king, said: "No, the maidens must be forever separated. "He expressed a willingness, however, to have the Princess Clotildabrought up in his palace, which had been her father's, and requestedthe priest Ugo of Rheims to remain awhile, and look after the girl'seducation. In those days a king's request was a command, and the goodUgo, though stern and brave in the face of real danger, was shrewdenough to know that it was best for him to yield to the king's wishes. So he continued in the palace of the king, looking after the welfareof his little charge, until suddenly the girl took matters into her ownhands, and decided his future and her own. 

The kingdom of Burgundy, in the days of the Princess Clotilda, wasa large tract of country now embraced by Southern France and WesternSwitzerland. It had been given over by the Romans to the Goths, who hadinvaded it in the year 413. It was a land of forest and vineyards, of fair valleys and sheltered hill-sides, and of busy cities that thefostering hand of Rome had beautified; while through its broad domainthe Rhone, pure and sparkling, swept with a rapid current from Swisslake and glacier, southward to the broad and beautiful Mediterranean. Lyons was its capital, and on the hill of Fourviere, overlooking thecity below it, rose the marble palace of the Burgundian kings, near tothe spot where, to-day, the ruined forum of the old Roman days is stillshown to tourists. 

It had been a palace for centuries. Roman governors of "Imperial Gaul"had made it their head-quarters and their home; three Roman emperors hadcooed and cried as babies within its walls; and it had witnessed alsomany a feast and foray, and the changing fortunes of Roman, Gallic, andBurgundian conquerors and over-lords. But it was no longer "home" to thelittle Princess Clotilda. She thought of her father and mother, and ofher brothers, the little princes with whom she had played in this verypalace, as it now seemed to her, so many years ago. And the more shefeared her cruel uncle, the more did she desire to go far, far away fromhis presence. So, after thinking the whole matter over, as little girlsof ten can sometimes think, she told her good friend Ugo, the priest, of her father's youngest brother Godegesil, who ruled the dependentprincipality of Geneva, far up the valley of the Rhone. 

"Yes, child, I know the place, " said Ugo. "A fair city indeed, on theblue and beautiful Lake Lemanus, walled in by mountains, and rich incorn and vineyards. "

"Then let us fly thither, " said the girl. "My uncle Godegesil I knowwill succor us, and I shall be freed from my fears of King Gundebald. "

Though it seemed at first to the good priest only a child's desire, helearned to think better of it when he saw how unhappy the poor girl wasin the hated palace, and how slight were her chances for improvement. And so, one fair spring morning in the year 486, the two slipped quietlyout of the palace; and by slow and cautious stages, with help fromfriendly priests and nuns, and frequent rides in the heavy ox-wagonsthat were the only means of transport other than horseback, they finallyreached the old city of Geneva. 

And on the journey, the good Ugo had made the road seem less weary, andthe lumbering ox-wagons less jolty and painful, by telling hisbright young charge of all the wonders and relics he had seen in hisjourneyings in the East; but especially did the girl love to hear himtell of the boy king of the Franks, Hlodo-wig, or Clovis, who lived inthe priest's own boyhood home of Tournay, in far-off Belgium, and who, though so brave and daring, was still a pagan, when all the world wasfast becoming Christian. And as Clotilda listened, she wished that shecould turn this brave young chief away from his heathen deities, Thorand Odin, to the worship of the Christians' God; and, revolving strangefancies in her mind, she determined what she would do when she "grewup, "--as many a girl since her day has determined. But even as theyreached the fair city of Geneva--then half Roman, half Gallic, in itsbuildings and its life--the wonderful news met them how this boy-kingClovis, sending a challenge to combat to the prefect Syagrius, the lastof the Roman governors, had defeated him in a battle at Soissons, andbroken forever the power of Rome in Gaul. 

War, which is never any thing but terrible, was doubly so in thosesavage days, and the plunder of the captured cities and homesteadswas the chief return for which the barbarian soldiers followed theirleaders. But when the Princess Clotilda heard how, even in the midst ofhis burning and plundering, the young Frankish chief spared some of thefairest Christian churches, he became still more her hero; and again thedesire to convert him from paganism and to revenge her father's murdertook shape in her mind. For, devout and good though she was, this excellent little maiden of the year 485 was by no means thegentle-hearted girl of 1888, and, like most of the world about her, hadbut two desires: to become a good church-helper, and to be revenged onher enemies. Certainly, fourteen centuries of progress and educationhave made us more loving and less vindictive. 

But now that the good priest Ugo of Rheims saw that his own home landwas in trouble, he felt that there lay his duty. And Godegesil, theunder-king of Geneva, feeling uneasy alike from the nearness of thisboy conqueror and the possible displeasure of his brother and over-lord, King Gundebald, declined longer to shelter his niece in his palace atGeneva. 

"And why may I not go with you?" the girl asked of Ugo; but the oldpriest knew that a conquered and plundered land was no place to whichto convey a young maid for safety, and the princess, therefore, foundrefuge among the sisters of the church of St. Peter in Geneva. And hereshe passed her girlhood, as the record says, "in works of piety andcharity. "

So four more years went by. In the north, the boy chieftain, reachingmanhood, had been raised aloft on the shields of his fair-haired andlong-limbed followers, and with many a "hael!" and shout had beenproclaimed "King of the Franks. " In the south, the young PrincessClotilda, now nearly sixteen, had washed the feet of pilgrims, ministered to the poor, and, after the manner of her day, had provedherself a zealous church-worker in that low-roofed convent near theold church of St. Peter, high on that same hill in Geneva where to-day, hemmed in by narrow streets and tall houses, the cathedral of St. Peter, twice rebuilded since Clotilda's time, overlooks the quaint city, thebeautiful lake of Geneva, and the rushing Rhone, and sees across thevalley of the Arve the gray and barren rocks of the Petit Seleve and thedistant snows of Mont Blanc. 

One bright summer day, as the young princess passed into the hospitium, or guest-room for poor pilgrims, attached to the convent, she saw therea stranger, dressed in rags. He had the wallet and staff of a mendicant, or begging pilgrim, and, coming toward her, he asked for "charity in thename of the blessed St. Peter, whose church thou servest. "

The young girl brought the pilgrim food, and then, according to thecustom of the day, kneeling on the earthen floor, she began to bathehis feet. But as she did so, the pilgrim, bending forward, said in a lowvoice:

"Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee, if thou deign to permitme to reveal them. "

Pilgrims in those days were frequently made the bearers of specialmessages between distant friends; but this poor young orphanprincess could think of no one from whom a message to her might come, Nevertheless, she simply said: "Say on. " In the same low tone the beggarcontinued, "Clovis, King of the Franks, sends thee greeting. "

The girl looked up now, thoroughly surprised. This beggar must bea madman, she thought. But the eyes of the pilgrim looked at herreassuringly, and he said: "In token whereof, he sendeth thee this ringby me, his confidant and comitatus, (1) Aurelian of Soissons. "

(1) One of the king's special body-guard, from which comes the titlecomp, count. 

The Princess Clotilda took, as if in a dream, the ring of transparentjacinth set in solid gold, and asked quietly:

"What would the king of the Franks with me?"

"The king, my master, hath heard from the holy Bishop Remi and thegood priest Ugo of thy beauty and discreetness, " replied Aurelian; "andlikewise of the sad condition of one who is the daughter of a royalline. He bade me use all my wit to come nigh to thee, and to say that, if it be the will of the gods, he would fain raise thee to his rank bymarriage. "

Those were days of swift and sudden surprises, when kings made up theirminds in royal haste, and princesses were not expected to be surprisedat whatever they might hear. And so we must not feel surprised to learnthat all the dreams of her younger days came into the girl's mind, andthat, as the record states, "she accepted the ring with great joy. "

"Return promptly to thy lord, " she said to the messenger, "and bid him, if he would fain unite me to him in marriage, to send messengers withoutdelay to demand me of my uncle, King Gundebald, and let those samemessengers take me away in haste, so soon as they shall have obtainedpermission. "

For this wise young princess knew that her uncle's word was not to belong depended upon, and she feared, too, that certain advisers at heruncle's court might counsel him to do her harm before the messengers ofKing Clovis could have conducted her beyond the borders of Burgundy. 

Aurelian, still in his pilgrim's disguise, for he feared discovery in ahostile country, hastened back to King Clovis, who, the record says, was"pleased with his success and with Clotilda's notion, and at once sent adeputation to Gundebald to demand his niece in marriage. "

As Clotilda foresaw, her uncle stood in too much dread of this fierceyoung conqueror of the north to say him nay. And soon in the palace atLyons, so full of terrible memories to this orphan girl, the courteousAurelian, now no longer in beggar's rags, but gorgeous in white silk anda flowing sagum, or mantle of vermilion, publicly engaged himself, as the representative of King Clovis, to the Princess Clotilda; and, according to the curious custom of the time, cemented the engagement bygiving to the young girl a sou and a denier. (1)

(1) Two pieces of old French coin, equalling about a cent and a mill inAmerican money. 

"Now deliver the princess into our hand, O king, " said the messenger, "that we may take her to King Clovis, who waiteth for us even now atChalons to conclude these nuptials. "

So, almost before he knew what he was doing, King Gundebald had biddenhis niece farewell; and the princess, with her escort of Frankishspears, was rumbling away in a clumsy basterne, or covered ox-wagon, toward the frontier of Burgundy. 

But the slow-moving ox-wagon by no means suited the impatience of thisshrewd young princess. She knew her uncle, the king of Burgundy, toowell. When once he was roused to action, he was fierce and furious. 

"Good Aurelian, " she said at length to the king's ambassador, who rodeby her side: "if that thou wouldst take me into the presence of thylord, the king of the Franks, let me descend from this carriage, mountme on horseback, and let us speed hence as fast as we may, for never inthis carriage shall I reach the presence of my lord, the king. "

And none too soon was her advice acted, upon for, the counsellors ofKing Gundebald, noticing Clotilda's anxiety to be gone, concluded that, after all, they had made a mistake in betrothing her to King Clovis. 

"Thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, " they said, "that thou didstslay Clotilda's father, her mother, and the young princes, her brothers. If Clotilda become powerful, be sure she will avenge the wrong thou hastwrought her. "

And forthwith the king sent off an armed band, with orders to bring backboth the princess and the treasure he had sent with her as her marriageportion. But already the princess and her escort were safely across theSeine, where, in the Campania, or plain-country, --later known as theprovince of Champagne--she met the king of the Franks. 

I am sorry to be obliged to confess that the first recorded desire ofthis beautiful, brave, and devout young maiden, when she found herselfsafely among the fierce followers of King Clovis, was a request forvengeance. But we must remember, girls and boys, that this is a story ofhalf-savage days when, as I have already said, the desire for revenge onone's enemies was common to all. 

From the midst of his skin-clad and green-robed guards and nobles, youngClovis--in a dress of "crimson and gold, and milk-white silk, " andwith his yellow hair coiled in a great top-knot on his uncoveredhead--advanced to meet his bride. 

"My lord king, " said Clotilda, "the bands of the king of Burgundyfollow hard upon us to bear me off. Command, I pray thee, that these, my escort, scatter themselves right and left for twoscore miles, andplunder and burn the lands of the king of Burgundy. "

Probably in no other way could this wise young girl of seventeen have sothoroughly pleased the fierce and warlike young king. He gladly orderedher wishes to be carried out, and the plunderers forthwith departed tocarry out the royal command. 

So her troubles were ended, and this prince and princess, --Hlodo-wig, or Clovis (meaning the "warrior youth"), and Hlodo-hilde, or Clotilda(meaning the "brilliant and noble maid"), --in spite of the wicked uncleGundebald, were married at Soissons, in the year 493, and, as the fairystories say, "lived happily together ever after. "

The record of their later years has no place in this sketch of thegirlhood of Clotilda; but it is one of the most interesting and dramaticof the old-time historic stories. The dream of that sad little princessin the old convent at Geneva, "to make her boy-hero a Christian, and tobe revenged on the murderer of her parents, " was in time fulfilled. Foron Christmas-day, in the year 493, the young king and three thousand ofhis followers were baptized amid gorgeous ceremonial in the great churchof St. Martin at Rheims. 

The story of the young queen's revenge is not to be told in these pages. But, though terrible, it is only one among the many tales of vengeancethat show us what fierce and cruel folk our ancestors were, in the dayswhen passion instead of love ruled the hearts of men and women, andof boys and girls as well; and how favored are we of this nineteenthcentury, in all the peace and prosperity and home happiness thatsurround us. 

But from this conversion, as also from this revenge, came the greatpower of Clovis and Clotilda; for, ere his death, in the year 511, hebrought all the land under his sway from the Rhine to the Rhone, theocean and the Pyrenees; he was hailed by his people with the old Romantitles of Consul and Augustus, and reigned victorious as the first kingof France. Clotilda, after years of wise counsel and charitable works, upon which her determination for revenge seems to be the only stain, died long after her husband, in the year 545, and to-day, in the city ofParis, which was even then the capital of new France, the church of St. Clotilda stands as her memorial, while her marble statue may be seen bythe traveller in the great palace of the Luxembourg. 

A typical girl of those harsh old days of the long ago, --lovingand generous toward her friends, unforgiving and revengeful to herenemies, --reared in the midst of cruelty and of charity, she did herduty according to the light given her, made France a Christian nation, and so helped on the progress of civilization. Certainly a place amongthe world's historic girls may rightly be accorded to this fair-hairedyoung princess of the summer-land of France, the beautiful Clotilda ofBurgundy. 

WOO OF HWANG-HO. : THE GIRL OF THE YELLOW RIVER. 

(Afterwards the Great Empress Woo of China. ) A. D. 635. 

Thomas the Nestorian had been in many lands and in the midst of manydangers, but he had never before found himself in quite sounpleasant a position as now. Six ugly Tartar horsemen with veryuncomfortable-looking spears and appalling shouts, and mounted on theirswift Kirghiz ponies, were charging down upon him, while neither therushing Yellow River on the right hand, nor the steep dirt-cliffs on theleft, could offer him shelter or means of escape. These dirt-cliffs, or "loess, " to give them their scientific name, are remarkable banks ofbrownish-yellow loam, found largely in Northern and Western China, andrising sometimes to a height of a thousand feet. Their peculiar yellowtinge makes every thing look "hwang" or yellow, --and hence yellow isa favorite color among the Chinese. So, for instance, the emperor is"Hwang-ti"--the "Lord of the Yellow Land"; the imperial throne is the"Hwang-wei" or "yellow throne" of China; the great river, formerlyspelled in your school geographies Hoang-ho, is "Hwang-ho, " the "yellowriver, " etc. 

These "hwang" cliffs, or dirt-cliffs, are full of caves and crevices, but the good priest could see no convenient cave, and he had thereforeno alternative but to boldly face his fate, and like a brave man calmlymeet what he could not avoid. 

But, just as he had singled out, as his probable captor, one peculiarlyunattractive-looking horseman, whose crimson sheepskin coat and longhorsetail plume were streaming in the wind, and just as he had bracedhimself to meet the onset against the great "loess, " or dirt-cliff, hefelt a twitch at his black upper robe, and a low voice--a girl's, he wasconfident--said quickly:

"Look not before nor behind thee, good O-lopun, but trust to my word andgive a backward leap. "

Thomas the Nestorian had learned two valuable lessons in his muchwandering about the earth, --never to appear surprised, and always to beready to act quickly. So, knowing nothing of the possible results ofhis action, but feeling that it could scarcely be worse than death fromTartar spears, he leaped back, as bidden. 

The next instant, he found himself flat upon his back in one of thelow-ceiled cliff caves that abound in Western China, while the screenof vines that had concealed its entrance still quivered from his fall. Picking himself up and breathing a prayer of thanks for his deliverance, he peered through the leafy doorway and beheld in surprise six muchastonished Tartar robbers regarding with looks of puzzled wonder adefiant little Chinese girl, who had evidently darted out of the cave ashe had tumbled in. She was facing the enemy as boldly as had he, andher little almond eyes fairly danced with mischievous delight at theirperplexity. 

At once he recognized the child. She was Woo (the "high-spirited" or"dauntless one"), the bright young girl whom he had often noticed in thethrong at his mission-house in Tung-Chow, --the little city by the YellowRiver, where her father, the bannerman, held guard at the Dragon Gate. 

He was about to call out to the girl to save herself, when, with asudden swoop, the Tartar whom he had braced himself to resist, bentin his saddle and made a dash for the child. But agile little, Woowas quicker than the Tartar horseman. With a nimble turn and a suddenspring, she dodged the Tartar's hand, darted under his pony's legs, and with a shrill laugh of derision, sprang up the sharp incline, anddisappeared in one of the many cliff caves before the now doubly baffledhorsemen could see what had become of her. 

With a grunt of discomfiture and disgust, the Tartar riders turned theirponies' heads and galloped off along the road that skirted the yellowwaters of the swift-flowing Hwang-ho. Then a little yellow face peepedout of a cave farther up the cliff, a black-haired, tightly braided headbobbed and twitched with delight, and the next moment the good priestwas heartily thanking his small ally for so skilfully saving him fromthreatened capture. 

It was a cool September morning in the days of the great Emperor Tai, twelve hundred and fifty years ago. And a great emperor was Tai-tsung, though few, if any, of my young readers ever heard his name. Hissplendid palace stood in the midst of lovely gardens in the great cityof Chang-an, --that old, old city that for over two thousand years wasthe capital of China, and which you can now find in your geographiesunder its modern name of Singan-foo. And in the year 635, when ourstory opens, the name of Tai-tsung was great and powerful throughout thelength and breadth of Chung Kwoh--the "Middle Kingdom, " as the Chinesefor nearly thirty centuries have called their vast country--while thestories of his fame and power had reached to the western courts of Indiaand of Persia, of Constantinople, and even of distant Rome. 

It was a time of darkness and strife in Europe. Already what historianshave called the Dark Ages had settled upon the Christian world. Andamong all the races of men the only nation that was civilized, andlearned, and cultivated, and refined in this seventh century of theChristian era, was this far eastern Empire of China, where schools andlearning flourished, and arts and manufactures abounded, when Americawas as yet undiscovered and Europe was sunk in degradation. 

And here, since the year 505, the Nestorians, a branch of the ChristianChurch, originating in Asia Minor in the fifth century, and often called"the Protestants of the East, " had been spreading the story of the lifeand love of Christ. And here, in this year of grace 635, in the city ofChang-an, and in all the region about the Yellow River, the good priestThomas the Nestorian, whom the Chinese called O-lo-pun--the nearestapproach they could give to his strange Syriac name--had his Christianmission-house, and was zealously bringing to the knowledge of a greatand enlightened people the still greater and more helpful light ofChristianity. 

"My daughter, " said the Nestorian after his words of thanks wereuttered; "this is a gracious deed done to me, and one that I may noteasily repay. Yet would I gladly do so, if I might. Tell me what wouldstthou like above all other things?"

The answer of the girl was as ready as it was unexpected. 

"To be a boy, O master!" she replied. "Let the great Shang-ti, (1) whosemight thou teachest, make me a man that I may have revenge. "

(1) Almighty Being. 

The good priest had found strange things in his mission work in thisfar Eastern land, but this wrathful demand of an excited little maid wasfull as strange as any. For China is and ever has been a land in whichthe chief things taught the children are, "subordination, passivesubmission to the law, to parents, and to all superiors, and a peacefuldemeanor. "

"Revenge is not for men to trifle with, nor maids to talk of, " he said. "Harbor no such desires, but rather come with me and I will show theemore attractive things. This very day doth the great emperor go forthfrom the City of Peace, (1) to the banks of the Yellow River. Come thouwith me to witness the splendor of his train, and perchance even to seethe great emperor himself and the young Prince Kaou, his son. "

(1) The meaning of Chang-an, the ancient capital of China, is "the Cityof Continuous Peace. "

"That I will not then, " cried the girl, more hotly than before. "I hatethis great emperor, as men do wrongfully call him, and I hate the youngPrince Kaou. May Lung Wang, the god of the dragons, dash them bothbeneath the Yellow River ere yet they leave its banks this day. "

At this terrible wish on the lips of a girl, the good master verynearly forgot even his most valuable precept--never to be surprised. Heregarded his defiant young companion in sheer amazement. 

"Have a care, have a care, my daughter!" he said at length. "The blessedSaint James telleth us that the tongue is a little member, but it cankindle a great fire. How mayst thou hope to say such direful wordsagainst the Son of Heaven(1) and live?"

(1) "The Son of Heaven" is one of the chief titles of the Chineseemperor. 

"The Son of Heaven killed the emperor, my father, " said the child. 

"The emperor thy father!" Thomas the Nestorian almost gasped in thislatest surprise. "Is the girl crazed or doth she sport with one whoseeketh her good?" And amazement and perplexity settled upon his face. 

"The Princess Woo is neither crazed nor doth she sport with the master, "said the girl. "I do but speak the truth. Great is Tai-tsung. Whom hewill he slayeth, and whom he will he keepeth alive. " And then she toldthe astonished priest that the bannerman of the Dragon Gate was nother father at all. For, she said, as she had lain awake only the nightbefore, she had heard enough in talk between the bannerman and his wifeto learn her secret--how that she was the only daughter of the rightfulemperor, the Prince Kung-ti, whose guardian and chief adviser thepresent emperor had been; how this trusted protector had made away withpoor Kung-ti in order that he might usurp the throne; and how she, thePrincess Woo, had been flung into the swift Hwang-ho, from the turbidwaters of which she had been rescued by the bannerman of the DragonGate. 

"This may or may not be so, " Thomas the Nestorian said, uncertainwhether or not to credit the girl's surprising story; "but even were ittrue, my daughter, how couldst thou right thyself? What can a girl hopeto do?"

The young princess drew up her small form proudly. "Do?" she cried inbrave tones; "I can do much, wise O-lo-pun, girl though I am! Did nota girl save the divine books of Confucius, when the great EmperorChi-Hwang-ti did command the burning of all the books in the empire?Did not a girl--though but a soothsayer's daughter--raise the outlaw LiuPang straight to the Yellow Throne? And shall I, who am the daughter ofemperors, fail to be as able or as brave as they?"

The wise Nestorian was shrewd enough to see that here was a prize thatmight be worth the fostering. By the assumption of mystic knowledge, helearned from the bannerman of the Dragon Gate, the truth of the girl'sstory, and so worked upon the good bannerman's native superstition andawe of superior power as to secure the custody of the young princess, and to place her in his mission-house at Tung-Chow for teaching andguidance. Among the early Christians, the Nestorians held peculiarlyhelpful and elevating ideas of the worth and proper condition of woman. Their precepts were full of mutual help, courtesy, and fraternal love. All these the Princess Woo learned under her preceptor's guidance. She grew to be even more assertive and self-reliant, and became, also, expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, onlyboys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen yearsold, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, bythe Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out tofind the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed thehigh bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways, the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city ofChang-an-the City of Continuous Peace. 

But even before he had entered its northern gate, a little maid in loosesilken robe, peaked cap, and embroidered shoes had passed through thatvery gateway, and slipping through the thronging streets of the greatcity, approached at last the group of picturesque and glitteringbuildings that composed the palace of the great Emperor Tai. 

Just within the main gateway of the palace rose the walls of theImperial Academy, where eight thousand Chinese boys received instructionunder the patronage of the emperor, while, just beyond extended thelong, low range of the archery school, in which even the emperor himselfsometimes came to witness, or take part in, the exciting contests. 

Drawing about her shoulders the yellow sash that denoted alliancewith royalty, the Princess Woo, without a moment's hesitation, walkedstraight through the palace gateway, past the wondering guards, and intothe boundaries of the archery court. 

Here the young Prince Kaou, an indolent and lazy lad of about her ownage, was cruelly goading on his trained crickets to a ferocious fightwithin their gilded bamboo cage, while, just at hand, the slaves werepreparing his bow and arrows for his daily archery practice. 

Now, among the rulers of China there are three classes of privilegedtargets--the skin of the bear for the emperor himself, the skin of thedeer for the princes of the blood, and the skin of the tiger for thenobles of the court; and thus, side by side, in the Imperial ArcherySchool at Chang-an, hung the three targets. 

The girl with the royal sash and the determined face walked straight upto the Prince Kaou. The boy left off goading his fighting crickets, andlooked in astonishment at this strange and highly audacious girl, whodared to enter a place from which all women were excluded. Before theguards could interfere, she spoke. 

"Are the arrows of the great Prince Kaou so well fitted to the cord, "she said, "that he dares to try his skill with one who, although a girl, hath yet the wit and right to test his skill?"

The guards laid hands upon the intruder to drag her away, but theprince, nettled at her tone, yet glad to welcome any thing that promisednovelty or amusement, bade them hold off their hands. 

"No girl speaketh thus to the Prince Kaou and liveth, " he saidinsolently. "Give me instant test of thy boast, or the wooden collar(1)in the palace torture-house, shall be thy fate. "

(1) The "wooden collar" was the "kia" or "cangue, "--a terribleinstrument of torture used in China for the punishment of criminals. 

"Give me the arrows, Prince, " the girl said, bravely, "and I will makegood my words. "

At a sign, the slaves handed her a bow and arrows. But, as she tried thecord and glanced along the polished shaft, the prince said:

"Yet, stay, girl; here is no target set for thee. Let the slaves set upthe people's target. These are not for such as thou. "

"Nay, Prince, fret not thyself, " the girl coolly replied. "My targetis here!" and while all looked on in wonder, the undaunted girldeliberately toed the practice line, twanged her bow, and with a suddenwhiz, sent her well-aimed shaft quivering straight into the small whitecentre of the great bearskin--the imperial target itself!

With a cry of horror and of rage at such sacrilege, the guards pouncedupon the girl archer, and would have dragged her away. But with the samequick motion that had saved her from the Tartar robbers, she sprangfrom their grasp and, standing full before the royal target, she saidcommandingly:

"Hands off, slaves; nor dare to question my right to the bearskintarget. I am the Empress!"

It needed but this to cap the climax. Prince, guards, and slaveslooked at this extraordinary girl in open-mouthed wonder. But ere theirspeechless amazement could change to instant seizure, a loud laugh rangfrom the imperial doorway and a hearty voice exclaimed: "Braved, andby a girl! Who is thy Empress, Prince? Let me, too, salute theTsih-tien!"(1) Then a portly figure, clad in yellow robes, strode downto the targets, while all within the archery lists prostrated themselvesin homage before one of China's greatest monarchs--the EmperorTai-tsung, Wun-woo-ti. (2)

(1) "The Sovereign Divine"--an imperial title. 

(2) "Our Exalted Ancestor--the Literary-Martial Emperor. "

But before even the emperor could reach the girl, the bamboo screenwas swept hurriedly aside, and into the archery lists came the anxiouspriest, Thomas the Nestorian. He had traced his missing charge even tothe imperial palace, and now found her in the very presence of those hedeemed her mortal enemies. Prostrate at the emperor's feet, he told theyoung girl's story, and then pleaded for her life, promising to keep hersafe and secluded in his mission-home at Tung-Chow. 

The Emperor Tai laughed a mighty laugh, for the bold front of this onlydaughter of his former master and rival, suited his warlike humor. Buthe was a wise and clement monarch withal. 

"Nay, wise O-lo-pun, " he said. "Such rivals to our throne may not beat large, even though sheltered in the temples of the hung-mao. (1)The royal blood of the house of Sui(2) flows safely only within palacewalls. Let the proper decree be registered, and let the gifts beexchanged; for to-morrow thy ward, the Princess Woo, becometh one of ourmost noble queens. "

(1) The "light-haired ones"--an old Chinese term for the westernChristians. 

(2) The name of the former dynasty. 

And so at fourteen, even as the records show, this strong-willed younggirl of the Yellow River became one of the wives of the great EmperorTai. She proved a very gracious and acceptable stepmother to youngPrince Kaou, who, as the records also tell us, grew so fond of the girlqueen that, within a year from the death of his great father, and whenhe himself had succeeded to the Yellow Throne, as Emperor Supreme, he recalled the Queen Woo from her retirement in the mission-house atTung-Chow and made her one of his royal wives. Five years after, in theyear 655, she was declared Empress, and during the reign of her lazy andindolent husband she was "the power behind the throne. " And when, inthe year 683, Kaou-tsung died, she boldly assumed the direction ofthe government, and, ascending the throne, declared herself Woo HowTsih-tien--Woo the Empress Supreme and Sovereign Divine. 

History records that this Zenobia of China proved equal to the greattask. She "governed the empire with discretion, " extended its borders, and was acknowledged as empress from the shores of the Pacific to theborders of Persia, of India, and of the Caspian Sea. 

Her reign was one of the longest and most successful in that periodknown in history as the Golden Age of China. Because of the relentlessnative prejudice against a successful woman, in a country where girlbabies are ruthlessly drowned, as the quickest way of ridding the worldof useless incumbrances, Chinese historians have endeavored to blackenher character and undervalue her services. But later scholars now seethat she was a powerful and successful queen, who did great good to hernative land, and strove to maintain its power and glory. 

She never forgot her good friend and protector, Thomas the Nestorian. During her long reign of almost fifty years, Christianity strengthenedin the kingdom, and obtained a footing that only the great Mahometanconquests of five centuries later entirely destroyed; and the EmpressWoo, so the chronicles declare, herself "offered sacrifices to the greatGod of all. " When, hundreds of years after, the Jesuit missionariespenetrated into this most exclusive of all the nations of the earth, they found near the palace at Chang-an the ruins of the Nestorianmission church, with the cross still standing, and, preserved throughall the changes of dynasties, an abstract in Syriac characters of theChristian law, and with it the names of seventy-two attendant priestswho had served the church established by O-lo-pun. 

Thus, in a land in which, from the earliest ages, women have beenregarded as little else but slaves, did a self-possessed and wise younggirl triumph over all difficulties, and rule over her many millions ofsubjects "in a manner becoming a great prince. " This, even her enemiesadmit. "Lessening the miseries of her subjects, " so the historiansdeclare, she governed the wide Empire of China wisely, discreetly, andpeacefully; and she displayed upon the throne all the daring, wit, andwisdom that had marked her actions when, years before, she was nothingbut a sprightly and determined little Chinese maiden, on the banks ofthe turbid Yellow River. 

EDITH OF SCOTLAND. : THE GIRL OF THE NORMAN ABBEY. 

(Afterward known as the "Good Queen Maud" of England. ) A. D. 1093. 

On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house atGloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them, brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young fellowof sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all unmindful ofthe noise about them--the romp and riot of a throng of young folk, attendants, or followers of the knights and barons of King William'scourt. 

For William Rufus, son of the Conqueror and second Norman king ofEngland, held his Whitsuntide gemot, or summer council of his lords andlieges, in the curious old Roman-Saxon-Norman town of Gloucester, in thefair vale through which flows the noble Severn. The city is known to theyoung folk of to-day as the one in which good Robert Raikes started thefirst Sunday-school more than a hundred years ago. But the gemot ofKing William the Red, which was a far different gathering from good Mr. Raikes' Sunday-school, was held in the great chapter-house of the oldBenedictine Abbey, while the court was lodged in the Abbey guest-houses, in the grim and fortress-like Gloucester Castle, and in the houses ofthe quaint old town itself. 

The boy was shaking his head rather doubtfully as he stood, looking downupon the two girls on the broad window-seat. 

"Nay, nay, beausire(1); shake not your head like that, " exclaimed theyounger of the girls. "We did escape that way, trust me we did; Edithhere can tell you I do speak the truth--for sure, 't was her device. "

(1) "Fair sir": an ancient style of address, used especially towardthose high in rank in Norman times. 

Thirteen-year-old Edith laughed merrily enough at her sister'sperplexity, and said gayly as the lad turned questioningly to her:

"Sure, then, beausire, 't is plain to see that you are Southron-born andknow not the complexion of a Scottish mist. Yet 't is even as Mary said. For, as we have told you, the Maiden's Castle standeth high-placed onthe crag in Edwin's Burgh, and hath many and devious pathways to thelower gate, So when the Red Donald's men were swarming up the steep, myuncle, the Atheling, did guide us, by ways we knew well, and by twistsand turnings that none knew better, straight through Red Donald's array, and all unseen and unnoted of them, because of the blessed thickness ofthe gathering mist. "

"And this was YOUR device?" asked the boy, admiringly. 

"Ay, but any one might have devised it too, " replied young Edith, modestly. "Sure, 't was no great device to use a Scotch mist forour safety, and 't were wiser to chance it than stay and be stupidlymurdered by Red Donald's men. And so it was, good Robert, even as Marydid say, that we came forth unharmed, from amidst them and fled here toKing William's court, where we at last are safe. "

"Safe, say you, safe?" exclaimed the lad, impulsively. "Ay, as safe asis a mouse's nest in a cat's ear--as safe as is a rabbit in a ferret'shutch. But that I know you to be a brave and dauntless maid, I shouldsay to you----"

But, ere Edith could know what he would say, their conference was rudelybroken in upon. For a royal page, dashing up to the three, with scantcourtesy seized the arm of the elder girl, and said hurriedly:

"Haste ye, haste ye, my lady! Our lord king is even now calling for youto come before him in the banquet-hall. "

Edith knew too well the rough manners of those dangerous days. She freedherself from the grasp of the page, and said:

"Nay, that may I not, master page. 'T is neither safe nor seemly for amaid to show herself in baron's hall or in king's banquet-room. "

"Safe and seemly it may not be, but come you must, " said the page, rudely. "The king demands it, and your nay is naught. "

And so, hurried along whether she would or no, while her friend, RobertFitz Godwine, accompanied her as far as he dared, the young PrincessEdith was speedily brought into the presence of the king of England, William H. , called, from the color of his hair and from his fierytemper, Rufus, or "the Red. "

For Edith and Mary were both princesses of Scotland, with a history, even before they had reached their teens, as romantic as it wasexciting. Their mother, an exiled Saxon princess, had, after theconquest of Saxon England by the stern Duke William the Norman, foundrefuge in Scotland, and had there married King Malcolm Canmore, the sonof that King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain. But when King Malcolmhad fallen beneath the walls of Alnwick Castle, a victim to Englishtreachery, and when his fierce brother Donald Bane, or Donald the Red, had usurped the throne of Scotland, then the good Queen Margaret died inthe gray castle on the rock of Edinburgh, and the five orphaned childrenwere only saved from the vengeance of their bad uncle Donald by theshrewd and daring device of the young Princess Edith, who bade theirgood uncle Edgar, the Atheling, guide them, under cover of the mist, straight through the Red Donald's knights and spearmen to England andsafety. 

You would naturally suppose that the worst possible place for thefugitives to seek safety was in Norman England; for Edgar the Atheling, a Saxon prince, had twice been declared king of England by the Saxonenemies of the Norman conquerors, and the children of King Malcolm andQueen Margaret--half Scotch, half Saxon--were, by blood and birth, ofthe two races most hateful to the conquerors. But the Red King in hisrough sort of way--hot to-day and cold to-morrow--had shown somethingalmost like friendship, for this Saxon Atheling, or royal prince, whomight have been king of England had he not wisely submitted to thegreater power of Duke William the Conqueror and to the Red William, hisson. More than this, it had been rumored that some two years before, when there was truce between the kings of England and of Scotland, thisharsh and headstrong English king, who was as rough and repelling as achestnut burr, had seen, noticed, and expressed a particular interestin the eleven-year-old Scottish girl--this very Princess Edith who nowsought his protection. 

So, when this wandering uncle boldly threw himself upon Norman courtesy, and came with his homeless nephews and nieces straight to the Normancourt for safety, King William Rufus not only received these childrenof his hereditary foeman with favor and royal welcome, but gave themcomfortable lodgment in quaint old Gloucester town, where he held hiscourt. 

But even when the royal fugitives deemed themselves safest were they inthe greatest danger. 

Among the attendant knights and nobles of King William's court wasa Saxon knight known as Sir Ordgar, a "thegn, "(1) or baronet, ofOxfordshire; and because those who change their opinions--politicalor otherwise--often prove the most unrelenting enemies of their formerassociates, it came to pass that Sir Ordgar, the Saxon, conceived astrong dislike for these orphaned descendants of the Saxon kings, andconvinced himself that the best way to secure himself in the good gracesof the Norman King William was to slander and accuse the children of theSaxon Queen Margaret. 

(1) Pronounced thane. 

And so that very day, in the great hall, when wine was flowing andpassions were strong, this false knight, raising his glass, bade themall drink: "Confusion to the enemies of our liege the king, from thebase Philip of France to the baser Edgar the Atheling and his Scottishbrats!"

This was an insult that even the heavy and peace-loving nature of Edgarthe Atheling could not brook. He sprang to his feet and denounced thecharge:

"None here is truer or more leal to you, lord king, " he said, "than amI, Edgar the Atheling, and my charges, your guests. "

But King William Rufus was of that changing, temper that goes withjealousy and suspicion. His flushed face grew still more red, and, turning away from the Saxon prince, he demanded:

"Why make you this charge, Sir Ordgar?

"Because of its truth, beausire, " said the faithless knight. "For whatother cause hath this false Atheling sought sanctuary here, save to usehis own descent from the ancient kings of this realm to make head andforce among your lieges? And, his eldest kinsgirl here, the PrincessEdith, hath she not been spreading a trumpery story among the youngerfolk, of how some old wyrd-wif(1) hath said that she who is the daughterof kings shall be the wife and mother of kings? And is it not furthertrue that when her aunt, the Abbess of Romsey, bade her wear the holyveil, she hath again and yet again torn it off, and affirmed that she, who was to be a queen, could never be made a nun? Children and fools, 't is said, do speak the truth, beausire; and in all this do I see themalice and device of this false Atheling, the friend of your rebelliousbrother, Duke Robert, as you do know him to be; and I do brand him here, in this presence, as traitor and recreant to you, his lord. "

(1) Witch-wife or seeress. 

The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar wenton. 

"Enough!" he cried. "Seize the traitor, ----or, stay; children and fools, as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth. Have in thegirl and let us hear the truth. 'Not seemly'? Sir Atheling, " he brokeout in reply to some protest of Edith's uncle. "Aught is seemly that theking doth wish. Holo! Raoul! Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, andseek the Princess Edith, and bring her here forthwith!"

And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest ofall his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with the angryking, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after the PrincessEdith. 

"How now, mistress!" broke out the Red King, as the young girl wasushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn withfragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutaldays. "How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of yourown designs--you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wiseto talk, --nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught fromyou, --to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to winthe realm from me--from me, your only protector?"

The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the storiesof her girlhood show. And this unexpected accusation, instead offrightening her, only served to embolden her. She looked the angrymonarch full in the face. 

"'T is a false and lying charge, lord king, " she said, "from whomsoeverit may come. Naught have I said but praise of you and your courtesy tous motherless folk. 'T is a false and lying charge; and I am ready tostand test of its proving, come what may. "

"Even to the judgment of God, girl?" demanded the king. 

And the brave girl made instant reply: "Even to the judgment of God, lord king. " Then, skilled in all the curious customs of those warliketimes, she drew off her glove. "Whosoever my accuser be, lord king, "she said, "I do denounce him as foresworn and false, and thus do I throwmyself upon God's good mercy, if it shall please him to raise me up achampion. " And she flung her glove upon the floor of the hall, in faceof the king and all his barons. 

It was a bold thing for a girl to do, and a murmur of applause ranthrough even that unfriendly throng. For, to stand the test of a "wagerof battle, " or the "judgment of God, " as the savage contest was called, was the last resort of any one accused of treason or of crime. It meantno less than a "duel to the death" between the accuser and the accusedor their accepted champions, and, upon the result of the duel hung thelives of those in dispute. And the Princess Edith's glove lying on thefloor of the Abbey hall was her assertion that she had spoken the truthand was willing to risk her life in proof of her innocence. 

Edgar the Atheling, peace-lover, though he was, would gladly haveaccepted the post of champion for his niece, but, as one also involvedin the charge of treason, such action was denied him. 

For the moment, the Red King's former admiration for this brave youngprincess caused him to waver; but those were days when suspicion andjealousy rose above all nobler traits. His face grew stern again. 

"Ordgar of Oxford, " he said, "take up the glove!" and Edith knew who washer accuser. Then the King asked: "Who standeth as champion for Edgarthe Atheling and this maid, his niece?"

Almost before the words were spoken young Robert Fitz Godwine had sprungto Edith's side. 

"That would I, lord king, if a young squire might appear against abelted knight!"

"Ordgar of Oxford fights not with boys!" said the accusercontemptuously. 

The king's savage humor broke out again. 

"Face him with your own page, Sir Ordgar, " he said, with a grim laugh. "Boy against boy would be a fitting wager for a young maid's life. " Butthe Saxon knight was in no mood for sport. 

"Nay, beausire; this is no child's play, " he said. "I care naughtfor this girl. I stand as champion for the king against yon traitorAtheling, and if the maiden's cause is his, why then against her too. This is a man's quarrel. "

Young Robert would have spoken yet again as his face flushed hot withanger at the knight's contemptuous words. But a firm hand was laid uponhis shoulder, and a strong voice said:

"Then is it mine, Sir Ordgar. If between man and man, then will I, withthe gracious permission of our lord the king, stand as champion for thismaiden here and for my good lord, the noble Atheling, whose liegemanand whose man am I, next to you, lord king. " And, taking the mate to theglove which the Princess Edith had flung down in defiance, he thrust itinto the guard of his cappe. Line, or iron skull-cap, in token thathe, Godwine of Winchester, the father of the boy Robert, was the younggirl's champion. 

Three days after, in the tilt-yard of Gloucester Castle, the wager ofbattle was fought. It was no gay tournament show with streaming banners, gorgeous lists, gayly dressed ladies, flower-bedecked balconies, and allthe splendid display of a tourney of the knights, of which you readin the stories of romance and chivalry. It was a solemn and sombregathering in which all the arrangements suggested only death and gloom, while the accused waited in suspense, knowing that halter and fagotwere prepared for them should their champion fall. In quaint and crabbedLatin the old chronicler, John of Fordun, tells the story of the fight, for which there is neither need nor space here. The glove of eachcontestant was flung into the lists by the judge, and the disputecommitted for settlement to the power of God and their own good swords. It is a stirring picture of those days of daring and of might, whenforce took the place of justice, and the deadliest blows were the onlyconvincing arguments. But, though supported by the favor of the king andthe display of splendid armor, Ordgar's treachery had its just reward. Virtue triumphed, and vice was punished. Even while treacherouslyendeavoring (after being once disarmed) to stab the brave Godwine witha knife which he had concealed in his boot, the false Sir Ordgar wasovercome, confessed the falsehood of his charge against Edgar theAtheling and Edith his niece, and, as the quaint old record has it, "The strength of his grief and the multitude of his wounds drove out hisimpious soul. "

So young Edith was saved; and, as is usually the case with men of hischaracter, the Red King's humor changed completely. The victoriousGodwine received the arms and lands of the dead Ordgar; Edgar theAtheling was raised high in trust and honor; the throne of Scotland, wrested from the Red Donald, was placed once more in the family ofKing Malcolm, and King William Rufus himself became the guardian andprotector of the Princess Edith. 

And when, one fatal August day, the Red King was found pierced by anarrow under the trees of the New Forest, his younger brother, DukeHenry, whom men called Beauclerc, "the good scholar, " for his love oflearning and of books, ascended the throne of England as King Henry I. And the very year of his accession, on the 11th of November, 1100, hemarried, in the Abbey of Westminster, the Princess Edith of Scotland, then a fair young lady of scarce twenty-one. At the request of herhusband she took, upon her coronation day, the Norman name of Matilda, or Maud, and by this name she is known in history and among the queensof England. 

So scarce four and thirty years after the Norman conquest, a Saxonprincess sat upon the throne of Norman England, the loving wife of theson of the very man by whom Saxon England was conquered. 

"Never, since the battle of Hastings, " says Sir Francis Palgrave, thehistorian, "had there been such a joyous day as when Queen Maud wascrowned. " Victors and vanquished, Normans and Saxons, were united atlast, and the name of "Good Queen Maud" was long an honored memory amongthe people of England. 

And she was a good queen. In a time of bitter tyranny, when the commonpeople were but the serfs and slaves of the haughty and cruel barons, this young queen labored to bring in kindlier manners and more gentleways. Beautiful in face, she was still more lovely in heart and life. Her influence upon her husband, Henry the scholar, was seen in thewise laws he made, and the "Charter of King Henry" is said to have beengained by her intercession. This important paper was the first steptoward popular liberty. It led the way to Magna Charta, and finallyto our own Declaration of Independence. The boys and girls of America, therefore, in common with those of England, can look back with interestand affection upon the romantic story of "Good Queen Maud, " thebrave-hearted girl who showed herself wise and fearless both in theperilous mist at Edinburgh, and, later still, in the yet greater dangersof "the black lists of Gloucester. "

JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS, A. D. 1414. 

Count William of Hainault, of Zealand and Friesland, Duke of Bavariaand Sovereign Lord of Holland, held his court in the great, stragglingcastle which he called his "hunting lodge, " near to the German Ocean, and since known by the name of "The Hague. "(1)

(1) "The Hague" is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage--the haag, or"hunting lodge, " of the Graf, or count. 

Count William was a gallant and courtly knight, learned in all the waysof chivalry, the model of the younger cavaliers, handsome in person, noble in bearing, the surest lance in the tilting-yard, and the stoutestarm in the foray. 

Like "Jephtha, Judge of Israel, " of whom the mock-mad Hamlet sang toPolonius, Count William had

 "One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well;"

and, truth to tell, this fair young Jacqueline, the little "Lady ofHolland, " as men called her, --but whom Count William, because of herfearless antics and boyish ways, called "Dame Jacob, "(1)--loved herknightly father with equal fervor. 

(1) Jaqueline is the French rendering of the Dutch Jakobine--thefeminine of Jakob, or James. 

As she sat, that day, in the great Hall of the Knights in the massivecastle at The Hague, she could see, among all the knights and nobleswho came from far and near to join in the festivities at Count William'scourt, not one that approached her father in nobility of bearing ormanly strength--not even her husband. 

Her husband? Yes. For this little maid of thirteen had been for eightyears the wife of the Dauphin of France, the young Prince John ofTouraine, to whom she had been married when she was scarce five yearsold and he barely nine. Surrounded by all the pomp of an age of glitterand display, these royal children lived in their beautiful castle ofQuesnoy, in Flanders, (1) when they were not, as at the time of ourstory, residents at the court of the powerful Count William of Holland. 

(1) Now Northeastern France. 

Other young people were there, too, --nobles and pages and littleladies-in-waiting; and there was much of the stately ceremonial andflowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike the fears ofcowards and the desires of heroes. For there have always been heroes andcowards in the world. 

And so, between all these young folk, there was much boastful talk andmuch harmless gossip how the little Lady of Courtrai had used the wrongcorner of the towel yesterday; how the fat Duchess of Enkhuysen hadviolated the laws of all etiquette by placing the wrong number offinger-bowls upon her table on St. Jacob's Day; and how the stout youngHubert of Malsen had scattered the rascal merchants of Dort at theirShrovetide fair. 

Then uprose the young Lord of Arkell. 

"Hold, there!" he cried hotly. "This Hubert of Malsen is but a craven, sirs, if he doth say the merchants of Dort are rascal cowards. Had theybeen fairly mated, he had no more dared to put his nose within the gatesof Dort than dare one of you here to go down yonder amid Count William'slions!"

"Have a care, friend Otto, " said the little Lady of Holland, withwarning finger; "there is one here, at least, who dareth to go amid thelions--my father, sir. "

"I said nothing of him, madam, " replied Count Otto. "I did mean theseyoung red hats here, who do no more dare to bait your father's lionsthan to face the Cods of Dort in fair and equal fight. "

At this bold speech there was instant commotion. For the nobles andmerchants of Holland, four centuries and a half ago, were at open strifewith one another. The nobles saw in the increasing prosperity of themerchants the end of their own feudal power and tyranny. The merchantsrecognized in the arrogant nobles the only bar to the growth ofHolland's commercial enterprise. So each faction had its leaders, itspartisans, its badges, and its followers. Many and bloody were the feudsand fights that raged through all those low-lying lands of Holland, asthe nobles, or "Hooks, " as they were called--distinguishable by theirbig red hats, --and the merchants, or "Cods, " with their slouch hats ofquiet gray, struggled for the lead in the state. And how they DID hateone another!

Certain of the younger nobles, however, who were opposed to the reigninghouse of Holland, of which Count William, young Jacqueline's father, was the head, had espoused the cause of the merchants, seeing in theirsuccess greater prosperity and wealth for Holland. Among these had beenthe young Lord of Arkell, now a sort of half prisoner at Count William'scourt because of certain bold attempts to favor the Cods in hisown castle of Arkell. His defiant words therefore raised a storm ofprotests. 

"Nay, then, Lord of Arkell, " said the Dauphin John, "you, who prate soloudly, would better prove your words by some sign of your own valor. You may have dared fight your lady mother, who so roundly punished youtherefor, but a lion hath not the tender ways of a woman. Face YOUthe lions, lord count, and I will warrant me they will not prove asforbearing as did she. "

It was common talk at Count William's court that the brave Lady ofArkell, mother of the Count Otto, had made her way, disguised, intowe castle of her son, had herself lowered the drawbridge, admitted herarmed retainers, overpowered and driven out her rebellious son; and thatthen, relenting, she had appealed to Count William to pardon the lad andto receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty. So this fling ofthe Dauphin's cut deep. 

But before the young Otto could return an angry answer, Jacqueline hadinterfered. 

"Nay, nay, my lord, " she said to her husband, the Dauphin; "'t is not aknightly act thus to impeach the honor of a noble guest. "

But now the Lord of Arkell had found his tongue. 

"My lord prince, " he said, bowing low with stately courtesy, "if, asmy lady mother and good Count William would force me, I am to be loyalvassal to you, my lieges here, I should but follow where you dare tolead. Go YOU into the lions' den, lord prince, and I will follow you, though it were into old Hercules' very teeth. "

It was a shrewd reply, and covered as good a "double-dare" as ever oneboy made to another. Some of the manlier of the young courtiers indeedeven dared to applaud. But the Dauphin John was stronger in tongue thanin heart. 

"Peste!" he cried contemptuously. "'T is a fool's answer and a fool'swill. And well shall we see now how you will sneak out of it all. See, Lord of Arkell, you who can prate so loudly of Cods and lions: herebefore all, I dare you to face Count William's lions yourself!"

The young Lord of Arkell was in his rich court suit--a tight-fitting, great-sleeved silk jacket, rich, violet chausses, or tights, and pointedshoes. But without a word, with scarce a look toward his challenger, heturned to his nearest neighbor, a brave Zealand lad, afterward noted inDutch history--Francis von Borselen. 

"Lend me your gabardine, friend Franz, will you not?" he said. 

The young von Borselen took from the back of the settle, over which itwas flung, his gabardine--the long, loose gray cloak that was a sort ofovercoat in those days of queer costume. 

"It is here, my Otto, " he said. 

The Lord of Arkell drew the loose gray cloak over his rich silk suit, and turned toward the door. 

"Otto von Arkell lets no one call him fool or coward, lord prince, " hesaid. "What I have dared you all to do, _I_ dare do, if you do not. See, now: I will face Count William's lions!"

The Princess Jacqueline sprang up in protest. 

"No, no; you shall not!" she cried. "My lord prince did but jest, as didwe all. John, " she said, turning appealingly to her young husband, whosat sullen and unmoved, "tell him you meant no such murderous test. Myfather!" she cried, turning now toward Count William, whose attentionhad been drawn to the dispute, "the Lord of Arkell is pledged to faceyour lions!"

Count William of Holland dearly loved pluck and nerve. 

"Well, daughter mine, " he said, "then will he keep his pledge. FriendOtto is a brave young gallant, else had he never dared raised spear andbanner, as he did, against his rightful liege. "

"But, my father, " persisted the gentle-hearted girl, "spear and bannerare not lions' jaws. And surely you may not in honor permit the wilfulmurder of a hostage. "

"Nay, madam, have no fear, " the Lord of Arkell said, bending incourteous recognition of her interest; "that which I do of mine own freewill is no murder, even should it fail. "

And he hastened from the hall. 

A raised gallery looked down into the spacious inclosure in which CountWilliam kept the living specimens of his own princely badge of the lion. And here the company gathered to see the sport. 

With the gray gabardine drawn but loosely over his silken suit, sothat he might, if need be, easily slip from it, Otto von Arkell boldlyentered the inclosure. 

"Soho, Juno! up, Hercules; hollo, up, Ajax!" cried Count William, from the balcony. "Here cometh a right royal playfellow--up, up, mybeauties!" and the great brutes, roused by the voice of their master, pulled themselves up, shook themselves awake, and stared at theintruder. 

Boldly and without hesitation, while all the watchers had eyes but forhim alone, the young Lord of Arkell walked straight up to Hercules, the largest of the three, and laid his hand caressingly upon the shaggymane. Close to his side pressed Juno, the lioness, and, so says therecord of the old Dutch chronicler, von Hildegaersberch, "the lions didhim no harm; he played with them as if they had been dogs. "

But Ajax, fiercest of the three, took no notice of the lad. Straightacross his comrades he looked to where, scarce a rod behind the daringlad, came another figure, a light and graceful form in clinging robes ofblue and undergown of cloth of gold--the Princess Jacqueline herself!

The watchers in the gallery followed the lion's stare, and saw, withhorror, the advancing figure of this fair young girl. A cry of terrorbroke from every lip. The Dauphin John turned pale with fright, andCount William of Holland, calling out, "Down, Ajax! back, girl, back!"sprang to his feet as if he would have vaulted over the gallery rail. 

But before he could act, Ajax himself had acted. With a bound hecleared the intervening space and crouched at the feet of the fair youngPrincess Jacqueline!

The lions must have been in remarkably good humor on that day, for, asthe records tell us, they did no harm to their visitors. Ajax slowlyrose and looked up into the girl's calm face. Then the voice ofJacqueline rang out fresh and clear as, standing with her hand buried inthe lion's tawny mane, she raised her face to the startled galleries. 

"You who could dare and yet dared not to do!" she cried, "it shall notbe said that in all Count William's court none save the rebel Lord ofArkell dared to face Count William's lions!"

The Lord of Arkell sprang to his comrade's side. With a hurried word ofpraise he flung the gabardine about her, grasped her arm, and bade herkeep her eyes firmly fixed upon the lions; then, step by step, those twofoolhardy young persons backed slowly out of the danger into which theyhad so thoughtlessly and unnecessarily forced themselves. 

The lions' gate closed behind them with a clang; the shouts of approvaland of welcome sounded from the thronging gallery, and over all theyheard the voice of the Lord of Holland mingling commendation and praisewith censure for the rashness of their action. 

And it WAS a rash and foolish act. But we must remember that thosewere days when such feats were esteemed as brave and valorous. For thePrincess Jaqueline of Holland was reared in the school of so-calledchivalry and romance, which in her time was fast approaching itsend. She was, indeed, as one historian declares, the last heroineof knighthood. Her very titles suggest the days of chivalry. She wasDaughter of Holland, Countess of Ponthieu, Duchess of Berry, Lady ofCrevecoeur, of Montague and Arloeux. Brought up in the midst of tiltsand tournaments, of banquets and feasting, and all the lavish display ofthe rich Bavarian court, she was, as we learn from her chroniclers, the leader of adoring knights and vassals, the idol of her parents, the ruler of her soft-hearted boy husband, an expert falconer, a daringhorsewoman, and a fearless descendant of those woman warriors of herrace, Margaret the Empress, and Philippa the Queen, and of a house thattraced its descent through the warlike Hohenstaufens back to Charlemagnehimself. 

All girls admire bravery, even though not themselves personallycourageous. It is not, therefore, surprising that this intrepid andromance-reared young princess, the wife of a lad for whom she neverespecially cared, and whose society had for political reasons beenforced upon her, should have placed as the hero of her admiration, nextto her own fearless father, not the Dauphin John of France, but thisbrave young rebel lad, Otto, the Lord of Arkell. 

But the joyous days of fete and pleasure at Quesnoy, at Paris, and TheHague were fast drawing to a close. On the fourth of April, 1417, theDauphin John died by poisoning, in his father's castle at Compiegne--thevictim of those terrible and relentless feuds that were then disgracingand endangering the feeble throne of France. 

The dream of future power and greatness as Queen of France, in which thegirl wife of the Dauphin had often indulged, was thus rudely dispelled, and Jacqueline returned to her father's court in Holland, no longercrown princess and heiress to a throne, but simply "Lady of Holland. "

But in Holland, too, sorrow was in store for her. Swiftly following theloss of her husband, the Dauphin, came the still heavier blow of herfather's death. On the thirtieth of May, 1417, Count William died in hiscastle of Bouchain, in Hainault, and his sorrowing daughter Jacqueline, now a beautiful girl of sixteen, succeeded to his titles and lordship asCountess and Lady Supreme of Hainault, of Holland, and of Zealand. 

For years, however, there had been throughout the Low Countries a strongobjection to the rule of a woman. The death of Count William showed theCods a way toward greater liberty. Rebellion followed rebellion, and therule of the Countess Jacqueline was by no means a restful one. 

And chief among the rebellious spirits, as leader and counsellor amongthe Cods, appeared the brave lad who had once been the companion of theprincess in danger, the young Lord of Arkell. 

It was he who lifted the standard of revolt against her regency. Placingthe welfare of Holland above personal friendship, and sinking, in hisdesire for glory, even the chivalry of that day, which should haveprompted him to aid rather than annoy this beautiful girl, he raised aconsiderable army among the knights of the Cods, or liberal party, andthe warlike merchants of the cities, took possession of many strongpositions in Holland, and occupied, among other places, the importanttown of Gorkum on the Maas. The stout citadel of the town, was, however, garrisoned with loyal troops. This the Lord of Arkell beseiged, and, demanding its surrender, sent also a haughty challenge to the youngcountess, who was hastening to the relief of her beleaguered town. 

Jacqueline's answer was swift and unmistakable. With three hundred shipsand six thousand knights and men-at-arms, she sailed from the old harborof Rotterdam, and the lion-flag of her house soon floated above theloyal citadel of Gorkum. 

Her doughty Dutch general, von Brederode, counselled immediate attack, but the girl countess, though full of enthusiasm and determination, hesitated. 

From her station in the citadel she looked over the scene before her. Here, along the low bank of the river Maas, stretched the camp of herown followers, and the little gayly colored boats that had brought herarmy up the river from the red roofs of Rotterdam. There, stretching outinto the flat country beyond the straggling streets of Gorkum, lay thetents of the rebels. And yet they were all her countrymen--rebels andretainers alike. Hollanders all, they were ever ready to combine forthe defence of their homeland when threatened by foreign foes or by thedestroying ocean floods. 

Jacqueline's eye caught the flutter of the broad banner of the house ofArkell that waved over the rebel camp. 

Again she saw the brave lad who alone of all her father's court, saveshe, had dared to face Count William's lions; again the remembrance ofhow his daring had made him one of her heroes, filled her heart, anda dream of what might be possessed her. Her boy husband, the FrenchDauphin, was dead, and she was pledged by her dying father's command tomarry her cousin, whom she detested, Duke John of Brabant. But how muchbetter, so she reasoned, that the name and might of her house as rulersof Holland should be upheld by a brave and fearless knight. On theimpulse of this thought she summoned a loyal and trusted vassal to heraid. 

"Von Leyenburg, " she said, "go you in haste and in secret to the Lord ofArkell, and bear from me this message for his ear alone. Thus says theLady of Holland: 'Were it not better, Otto of Arkell, that we join handsin marriage before the altar, than that we spill the blood of faithfulfollowers and vassals in a cruel fight?'"

It was a singular, and perhaps, to our modern ears, a most unladylikeproposal; but it shows how, even in the heart of a sovereign countessand a girl general, warlike desires may give place to gentler thoughts. 

To the Lord Arkell, however, this unexpected proposition came as anindication of weakness. 

"My lady countess fears to face my determined followers, " he thought. "Let me but force this fight and the victory is mine. In that is greaterglory and more of power than being husband to the Lady of Holland. "

And so he returned a most ungracious answer:

"Tell the Countess Jacqueline, " he said to the knight of Leyenburg, "that the honor of her hand I cannot accept. I am her foe, and wouldrather die than marry her. "

All the hot blood of her ancestors flamed in wrath as young Jacquelineheard this reply of the rebel lord. 

"Crush we these rebel curs, von Brederode, " she cried, pointing to thebanner of Arkell; "for by my father's memory, they shall have neithermercy nor life from me. "

Fast upon the curt refusal of the Lord of Arkell came his message ofdefiance. 

"Hear ye, Countess of Holland, " rang out the challenge of the heraldof Arkell, as his trumpet-blast sounded before the gate of the citadel, "the free Lord of Arkell here giveth you word and warning that he willfight against you on the morrow!"

And from the citadel came back this ringing reply, as the knight ofLeyenburg made answer for his sovereign lady:

"Hear ye, sir Herald, and answer thus to the rebel Lord of Arkell: 'Forthe purpose of fighting him came we here, and fight him we will, untilhe and his rebels are beaten and dead. ' Long live our Sovereign Lady ofHolland!"

On the morrow, a murky December day, in the year 1417, the battle wasjoined, as announced. On the low plain beyond the city, knights andmen-at-arms, archers and spearmen, closed in the shock of battle, and astubborn and bloody fight it was. 

Seven times did the knights of Jacqueline, glittering in their steelarmor, clash into the rebel ranks; seven times were they driven back, until, at last, the Lord of Arkell, with a fiery charge, forced themagainst the very gates of the citadel. The brave von Brederode fellpierced with wounds, and the day seemed lost, indeed, to the Lady ofHolland. 

Then Jacqueline the Countess, seeing her cause in danger--like anotherJoan of Arc, though she was indeed a younger and much more beautifulgirl general, --seized the lion-banner of her house, and, at the headof her reserve troops, charged through the open gate straight into theranks of her victorious foes. There was neither mercy nor gentlenessin her heart then. As when she had cowed with a look Ajax, the lion, so now, with defiance and wrath in her face, she dashed straight at thefoe. 

Her disheartened knights rallied around her, and, following theimpetuous girl, they wielded axe and lance for the final struggle. Theresult came quickly. The ponderous battle-axe of the knight of Leyenburgcrashed through the helmet of the Lord of Arkell, and as the brave youngleader fell to the ground, his panic-stricken followers turned and fled. The troops of Jacqueline pursued them through the streets of Gorkum andout into the open country, and the vengeance of the countess was sharpand merciless. 

But in the flush of victory wrath gave way to pity again, and the youngconqueror is reported to have said, sadly and in tears:

"Ah! I have won, and yet how have I lost!"

But the knights and nobles who followed her banner loudly praised hervalor and her fearlessness, and their highest and most knightly vowthereafter was to swear "By the courage of our Princess. "

The brilliant victory of this girl of sixteen was not, however, toaccomplish her desires. Peace never came to her. Harassed by rebellionat home, and persecuted by her relentless and perfidious uncles, CountJohn of Bavaria, rightly called "the Pitiless, " and Duke Philip ofBurgundy, falsely called "the Good, " she, who had once been CrownPrincess of France and Lady of Holland, died at the early age ofthirty-six, stripped of all her titles and estates. It is, however, pleasant to think that she was happy in the love of her husband, thebaron of the forests of the Duke of Burgundy, a plain Dutch gentleman, Francis von Borselen, the lad who, years before, had furnished the graygabardine that had shielded Count William's daughter from her father'slions. 

The story of Jacqueline of Holland is one of the most romantic that hascome down to us from those romantic days of the knights. Happy onlyin her earliest and latest years, she is, nevertheless, a bright andattractive figure against the dark background of feudal tyranny andcrime. The story of her womanhood should indeed be told, if we wouldstudy her life as a whole; but for us, who can in this paper deal onlywith her romantic girlhood, her young life is to be taken as a type ofthe stirring and extravagant days of chivalry. 

And we cannot but think with sadness upon the power for good that shemight have been in her land of fogs and floods if, instead of being madethe tool of party hate and the ambitions of men, her frank and fearlessgirl nature had been trained to gentle ways and charitable deeds. 

To be "the most picturesque figure in the history of Holland, " as shehas been called, is distinction indeed; but higher still must surely bethat gentleness of character and nobility of soul that, in these daysof ours, may be acquired by every girl and boy who reads this romanticstory of the Countess Jacqueline, the fair young Lady of Holland. 

CATARINA OF VENICE: THE GIRL OF THE GRAND CANAL. 

(Afterward known as Queen of Cyprus and "Daughter of the Republic. ")A. D. 1466. 

"Who is he? Why do you not know, Catarina mia? 'T is his Most PuissantExcellency, the mighty Lord of Lusignan, the runaway Heir of Jerusalem, the beggar Prince of Cyprus, with more titles to his name--ho ho, ho!--than he hath jackets to his back; and with more dodging thanducats, so 't is said, when the time to pay for his lodging drawethnigh. Holo, Messer Principino! Give you good-day, Lord of Lusignan! Ho, below there here is tribute for you. "

And down upon the head of a certain sad-faced, seedy-looking youngfellow in the piazza, or square, beneath, descended a rattling shower ofbonbons, thrown by the hand of the speaker, a brown-faced Venetian ladof sixteen. 

But little Catarina Cornaro, just freed from the imprisonment of herconvent-school at Padua, felt her heart go out in pity towards thishomeless young prince, who just now seemed to be the butt for all theriot and teasing of the boys of the Great Republic. 

"Nay, nay, my Giorgio, " she said to her brother; "'t is neither fair norwise so to beset one in dire distress. The good sisters of our schoolhave often told us that 't is better to be a beggar than a dullard; andsure yon prince, as you do say he is, looketh to be no dolt. But ah, seethere!" she cried, leaning far over the gayly draped balcony; "see, hecan well use his fists, can he not! Nay, though, 't is a shame soto beset him, say I. Why should our lads so misuse a stranger and aprince?"

It was the Feast Day of St. Mark, one of the jolliest of the old-timeholidays of Venice, that wonderful City of the Sea, whose patron andguardian St. Mark, the apostle, was supposed to be. Gondolas, rich withdraperies of every hue that completely concealed their frames of sombreblack, shot in and out, and up and down all the water-streets of thebeautiful city; while towering palace and humbler dwelling alike weregay with gorgeous hangings and fluttering streamers. 

In noticeable contrast with all the brilliant costumes and laughingfaces around him was the lad who just now seemed in so dire a strait. He had paused to watch one of the passing pageants from the steps of thePalazzo Cornaro, quite near the spot where, a century later, the famousbridge known as the Rialto spanned the Street of the Nobles, or GrandCanal--one of the most notable spots in the history of Venice theWonderful. 

The lad was indeed a prince, the representative of a lordly house thatfor more than five hundred years had been strong and powerful, firstas barons of France, and later as rulers of the Crusaders' kingdomof Jerusalem and the barbaric but wealthy island of Cyprus. But poorGiacomo, or James, of Lusignan, royal prince though he was, had beenbanished from his father's court in Cyprus. He had dared rebelagainst the authority of his step-mother, a cruel Greek princess fromConstantinople, who ruled her feeble old husband and persecuted herspirited young step-son, the Prince Giacomo. 

And so, with neither money nor friends to help him on, he had wanderedto Venice. But Venice in 1466, a rich, proud, and prosperous city, wasa very poor place for a lad who had neither friends nor money; for, ofcourse, the royal prince of a little island in the Mediterranean couldnot so demean himself as to soil his hands with work!

So I imagine that young Prince Giacomo had any thing but a pleasant timein Venice. On this particular Feast Day of St. Mark, I am certain thathe was having the most unpleasant of all his bitter experiences, as, backed up against one of the columns of the Cornaro Palace, he foundhimself surrounded by a crowd of thoughtless young Venetians, who wereteasing and bullying him to the full content of their brutal younghearts. 

The Italian temper is known to be both hot and hasty; but the temper oforiental Cyprus is even more fiery, and so it was not surprising that, in this most one-sided fray, the fun soon became fighting in earnest;for anger begets anger. 

All about the young prince was a tossing throng of restless and angryboys, while the beleaguered lad, still standing at bay, flourished awicked-looking stiletto above his head and answered taunt with taunt. 

At this instant the door of the Cornaro Palace opened quickly, and thePrince Giacomo felt himself drawn bodily within; while a bright-facedyoung girl with flashing eye and defiant air confronted his greatlysurprised tormentors. 

"Shame, shame upon you, boys of Venice, " she cried, "thus to ill-use astranger in your town! Is a score of such as you against one poorlad the boasted chivalry of Venice? Eh via! the very fisher-lads ofMendicoli could teach you better ways!"

Taken quite aback by this sudden apparition and these stinging words, the boys dispersed with scarce an attempt to reply, and all the morehastily because they spied, coming up the Grand Canal, the gorgeousgondola of the Companions of the Stocking, an association of young menunder whose charge and supervision all the pageants and displays of oldVenice were given. 

So the piazza was speedily cleared; and the Prince Giacomo, with manywords of thanks to his young and unknown deliverers, hurried from thespot which had so nearly proved disastrous to him. 

Changes came suddenly in those unsettled times. Within two years boththe Greek step-mother and the feeble old king were dead, and PrinceGiacomo, after a struggle for supremacy with his half-sister Carlotta, became King of Cyprus. 

Now Cyprus, though scarcely as large as the State of Connecticut, was avery desirable possession, and one that Venice greatly coveted. Some ofher citizens owned land there, and among these was Marco Cornaro, fatherof Catarina. And so it happened that, soon after the accession of KingGiacomo, Messer Andrea Cornaro, the uncle of Catarina, came to Cyprus toinspect and improve the lands belonging to his brother Marco. 

Venice, in those days was so great a power that the Venetian merchantswere highly esteemed in all the courts of Europe. And Uncle Andrea, whohad probably loaned the new king of Cyprus a goodly store of Venetianducats, became quite, friendly with the young monarch, and gave him muchsage advice. 

One day--it seemed as if purely by accident, but those old Venetianswere both shrewd and far-seeing--Uncle Andrea, talking of the glories ofVenice, showed to King Giacomo a picture of his niece, Catarina Cornaro, then a beautiful girl of fourteen. 

King Giacomo came of a house that was quick to form friendships andantipathies, loves and hates. He "fell violently in love with thepicture, "--so the story goes, --and expressed to Andrea Cornaro hisdesire to see and know the original. 

"That face seemeth strangely familiar, Messer Cornaro, " he said. 

He held the portrait in his hands, and seemed struggling with anuncertain memory. Suddenly his face lighted up, and he exclaimedjoyfully:

"So; I have it! Messer Cornaro, I know your niece. "

"You know her, sire?" echoed the surprised Uncle Andrea. 

"Ay, that indeed I do, " said the king. "This is the same fair and braveyoung maiden who delivered me from a rascal rout of boys on the GrandCanal at Venice, on St. Mark's Day, scarce two years ago. " And KingGiacomo smiled and bowed at the picture as if it were the livingCatarina instead of her simple portrait. 

Here now was news for Uncle Andrea. And you may be sure he was too gooda Venetian and too loyal a Cornaro not to turn it to the best advantage. So he stimulated the young king's evident inclination as cunningly ashe was able. His niece Catarina, he assured the king, was as good as shewas beautiful, and as clever as she was both. 

"But then, " he declared, "Venice hath many fair daughters, sire, whomthe king's choice would honor, and Catarina is but a young maid yet. Would it not be wiser, when you choose a queen, to select some olderdonzella for your bride? Though it will, I can aver, be hard to choosefairer. "

It is just such half-way opposition that renders nature like that ofthis young monarch all the more determined. No! King Giacomo would haveCatarina, and Catarina only, for his bride and queen. Messer Cornaromust secure her for him. 

But shrewd Uncle Andrea still feared the jealousy of hisfellow-Venetians. Why should the house of Cornaro, they would demand, be so openly preferred? And so, at his suggestion, an ambassador wasdespatched to Venice soliciting an alliance with the Great Republic, and asking from the senate the hand of some high-born maid of Venice inmarriage for his highness, the King of Cyprus. But you may be very surethat the ambassador had special and secret instructions alike from KingGiacomo and from Uncle Andrea just how and whom to choose. 

The ambassador came to Venice, and soon the senate issued its commandsthat upon a certain day the noblest and fairest of the daughters ofVenice--one from each of the patrician families--should appear in thegreat Council Hall of the Ducal Palace in order that the ambassador ofthe King of Cyprus might select a fitting bride for his royal master. Itreads quite like one of the old fairy stories, does it not? Only in thiscase the dragon who was to take away the fairest maiden as his tributewas no monster, but the brave young king of a lovely island realm. 

The Palace of the Doges--the Palazzo Ducale of old Venice--is familiarto all who have ever seen a picture of the Square of St. Mark's, the best known spot in that famous City of the Sea. It is the low, rectangular, richly decorated building with its long row of columns andarcades that stand out so prominently in photograph and engraving. Ithas seen many a splendid pageant, but it never witnessed a fairer sightthan when on a certain bright day of the year 1468 seventy-two of thedaughters of Venice, gorgeous in the rich costumes of that most lavishcity of a lavish age, gathered in the great Consiglio, or Council Hall. 

Up the Scala d'Oro, or Golden Staircase, built only for the use ofthe nobles, they came, escorted by the ducal guards, gleaming in theirrichest uniforms. The great Council Hall was one mass of color; thesplendid dresses of the ladies, the scarlet robes of the senators andhigh officials of the Republic, the imposing vestments of the old doge, Cristofero Moro, as he sat in state upon his massive throne, and thebewildering array of the seventy-two candidates for a king's choice. Seventy-two, I say, but in all that company of puffed and powdered, coifed and combed young ladies, standing tall and uncomfortable ontheir ridiculously high-heeled shoes, one alone was simply dressedand apparently unaffected by the gorgeousness of her companions, theseventy-second and youngest of them all. 

She was a girl of fourteen. Face and form were equally beautiful, anda mass of "dark gold hair" crowned her "queenly head. " While the othergirls appeared nervous or anxious, she seemed unconcerned, and her facewore even a peculiar little smile, as if she were contrasting the poorbadgered young prince of St. Mark's Day with the present King of Cyprushunting for a bride. "Eh via!" she said to herself, "'t is almost as ifit were a revenge upon us for our former churlishness, that he thus nowputs us to shame. "

The ambassador of Cyprus, swarthy of face and stately in bearing, entered the great hall. With him came his attendant retinue of Cypriotenobles. Kneeling before the doge, the ambassador presented the petitionof his master, the King of Cyprus, seeking alliance and friendship withVenice. 

"And the better to secure this and the more firmly to cement it, Eccellenza, " said the ambassador, "my lord and master the king dothcrave from your puissant state the hand, of some high-born damsel of theRepublic as that of his loving and acknowledged queen. "

The old doge waved his hand toward the fair and anxious seventy-two. 

"Behold, noble sir, " he said, "the fairest and noblest of our maidens ofVenice. Let your eye seek among these a fitting bride for your lord, theKing of Cyprus, and it shall be our pleasure to give her to him in sucha manner as shall suit the power and dignity of the State of Venice. "

Courteous and stately still, but with a shrewd and critical eye, theambassador of Cyprus slowly passed from candidate to candidate, withhere a pleasant word and there a look of admiration; to this one ahoneyed compliment upon her beauty, to that one a bit of praise for herelegance of dress. 

How oddly this all sounds to us with our modern ideas of propriety andgood taste! It seems a sort of Prize Girl Show, does it not? Or, it islike a competitive examination for a royal bride. 

But, like too many such examinations, this one had already been settledbeforehand. The King had decided to whom the prize of his crown shouldgo, and so, at the proper time, the critical ambassador stopped before aslight girl of fourteen, dressed in a robe of simple white. 

"Donzella mia, " he said courteously, but in a low tone; "are not youthe daughter of Messer. Marco Cornaro, the noble merchant of the ViaMerceria?"

"I am, my lord, " the girl replied. 

"My royal master greets you through me, " he said. "He recalls the daywhen you did give him shelter, and he invites you to share with him thethrone of Cyprus. Shall this be as he wishes?"

And the girl, with a deep courtesy in acknowledgment of the statelyobeisance of the ambassador, said simply, "That shall be, my lord, as myfather and his Excellency shall say. "

The ambassador of Cyprus took the young girl's hand, and, conductingher through all that splendid company, presented her before the doge'sthrone. 

"Excellency, " he said, "Cyprus hath made her choice. We present to you, if so it shall please your grace, our future queen, this fair youngmaid, Catarina, the daughter of the noble Marco Cornaro, merchant andsenator of the Republic. "

What the seventy-one disappointed young ladies thought of the King'schoice, or what they said about it when they were safely at home oncemore, history does not record. But history does record the splendorsand display of the ceremonial with which the gray-haired old doge, Cristofero Moro, in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by thesenators of the Republic and all the rank and power of the State ofVenice, formally adopted Catarina as a "daughter of the Republic. " Thusto the dignity of her father's house was added the majesty of thegreat Republic. Her marriage portion was placed at one hundred thousandducats, and Cyprus was granted, on behalf of this "daughter of theRepublic, " the alliance and protection of Venice. 

The ambassador of Cyprus standing before the altar of St. Mark's asthe personal representative of his master, King Giacomo was married "byproxy" to the young Venetian girl; while the doge, representing her newfather, the republic, gave her away in marriage, and Catarina Cornaro, amid the blessings of the priests, the shouts of the people, and thedemonstrations of clashing music and waving banners, was solemnlyproclaimed Queen of Cyprus, of Jerusalem, and of Armenia. 

But the gorgeous display, before which even the fabled wonders of the"Arabian Nights" were but poor affairs, did not conclude here. Followingthe splendors of the marriage ceremony and the wedding-feast, came thepageant of departure. The Grand Canal was ablaze with gorgeous colorsand decorations. The broad water-steps of the Piazza of St. Mark wassoft with carpets of tapestry, and at the foot of the stairs floatedthe most beautiful boat in the world, the Bucentaur or state gondola, of Venice. Its high, carved prow and framework were one mass of goldendecorations. White statues of the saints, carved heads of the lion ofSt. Mark, the doge's cap, and the emblems of the Republic adornedit throughout. Silken streamers of blue and scarlet floated from itsstandards; and its sides were draped in velvet hangings of crimson androyal purple. The long oars were scarlet and gold, and the rowers wereresplendent in suits of blue and silver. A great velvet-coveredthrone stood on the upper deck, and at its right was a chair of state, glistening with gold. 

Down the tapestried stairway came the Doge of Venice, and, resting uponhis arm, in a white bridal dress covered with pearls, walked the girlqueen Catarina. Doge and daughter seated themselves upon their sumptuousthrones, their glittering retinue filled the beautiful boat, the scarletoars dipped into the water; and then, with music playing, bannersstreaming, and a grand escort of boats of every conceivable shape, flashing in decoration and gorgeous in mingled colors, the bridal trainfloated down the Grand Canal, on past the outlying islands, and betweenthe great fortresses to where, upon the broad Adriatic, the galleys werewaiting to take the new Queen to her island kingdom off the shores ofGreece. And there, in his queer old town of Famagusta, built with acurious commingling of Saracen, Grecian, and Norman ideas, King Giacomomet his bride. 

So they were married, and for five happy years all went well with theyoung King and Queen. Then came troubles. King Giacomo died suddenlyfrom a cold caught while hunting, so it was said; though some averredthat he had been poisoned, either by his half-sister Carlotta, with whomhe had contended for his throne, or by some mercenary of Venice, whodesired his realm for that voracious Republic. 

But if this latter was the case, the voracious Republic of Venice wasnot to find an easy prey. The young Queen Catarina proclaimed her babyboy King of Cyprus, and defied the Great Republic. Venice, surprisedat this rebellion of its adopted "daughter, " dispatched embassy afterembassy to demand submission. But the young mother was brave and stoodboldly up for the rights of her son. 

But he, too, died. Then Catarina, true to the memory of her husbandand her boy, strove to retain the throne intact. For years she ruled asQueen of Cyprus, despite the threatenings of her home Republic and theconspiracies of her enemies. Her one answer to the demands of Venicewas:

"Tell the Republic I have determined never to remarry. When I am dead, the throne of Cyprus shall go to the State, my heir. But until that dayI am Queen of Cyprus!"

Then her brother Giorgio, the same who in earlier days had looked downwith her from the Cornaro Palace upon the outcast Prince of Cyprus, cameto her as ambassador of the Republic. His entreaties and his assurancethat, unless she complied with the senate's demand, the protection ofVenice would be withdrawn, and the island kingdom left a prey to Saracenpirates and African robbers, at last carried the day. Worn out withlong contending, fearful, not for herself but for her subjects ofCyprus, --she yielded to the demands of the senate, and abdicated infavor of the Republic. 

Then she returned to Venice. The same wealth of display and ceremonialthat had attended her departure welcomed the return of this obedientdaughter of the Republic, now no longer a light-hearted young girl, buta dethroned queen, a widowed and childless woman. 

She was allowed to retain her royal title of Queen of Cypus, and anoble domain was given her for a home in the town of Asola, up among thenorthern mountains. Here, in a massive castle, she held her court. Itwas a bright and happy company, the home of poetry and music, the arts, and all the culture and refinement of that age, when learning belongedto the few and the people were sunk in densest ignorance. 

Here Titian, the great artist, painted the portrait of the exiled queenthat has come down to us. Here she lived for years, sad in her memoriesof the past, but happy in her helpfulness of others until, on her wayto visit her brother Giorgio in Venice, she was stricken with a suddenfever, and died in the palace in which she had played as a child. 

With pomp and display, as was the wont of the Great Republic, with acity hung with emblems of mourning, and with the solemn strains ofdirge and mass filling the air, out from the great hall of the PalazzoCornaro, on, across the heavily draped bridge that spanned the GrandCanal from the water-gate of the palace, along the broad piazza crowdedwith a silent throng, and into the Church of the Holy Apostles, thefuneral procession slowly passed. The service closed, and in the greatCornaro tomb in the family chapel, at last was laid to rest the bodyof one who had enjoyed much but suffered more--the sorrowful Queen ofCyprus, the once bright and beautiful Daughter of the Republic. 

Venice to-day is mouldy and wasting. The palace in which CatarinaCornaro spent her girlhood is now a pawnbroker's shop. The last livingrepresentative of the haughty house of Lusignan--Kings, in their day, ofCyprus, of Jerusalem, and of Armenia--is said to be a waiter in a Frenchcafe. So royalty withers and power fades. There is no title to nobilitysave character, and no family pride so unfading as a spotless name. But, though palace and family have both decayed, the beautiful girl who wasonce the glory of Venice and whom great artists loved to paint, sends usacross the ages, in a flash of regal splendor, a lesson of loyalty andhelpfulness. This, indeed, will outlive all their queenly titles, andshows her to us as the bright-hearted girl who, in spite of sorrow, oftrouble, and of loss, developed into the strong and self-reliant woman. 

THERESA OF AVILA: THE GIRL OF THE SPANISH SIERRAS. 

(Afterward known as St. Theresa of Avila. ) A. D. 1525. 

It is a stern and gray old city that the sun looks down upon, whenonce he does show his jolly face above the saw-like ridges of the grimGuadarrama Mountains in Central Spain; a stern and gray old city as wellit may be, for it is one of the very old towns of Western Europe--Avila, said by some to have been built by Albula, the mother of Hercules nearlyfour thousand years ago. 

Whether or not it was the place in which that baby gymnast strangledthe serpents who sought to kill him in his cradle, it is indeed ancientenough to suit any boy or girl who likes to dig among the relics ofthe past. For more than eight centuries the same granite walls thatnow surround it have lifted their gray ramparts out of the vast andgranite-covered plains that make the country so wild and lonesome, whileits eighty-six towers and gateways, still unbroken and complete, tellof its strength and importance in those far-off days, when the Crosswas battling with the Crescent, and Christian Spain, step by step, wasforcing Mohammedan Spain back to the blue Mediterranean and the aridwastes of Africa, from which, centuries before, the followers of theArabian Prophet had come. 

At the time of our story, in the year 1525, this forcing process wasabout over. Under the relentless measures of Ferdinand and Isabella, with whose story all American children, at least, should be familiar, the last Moorish stronghold had fallen, in the very year in whichColumbus discovered America, and Spain, from the Pyrenees to the Straitsof Gibraltar, acknowledged the mastership of its Christian sovereigns. 

But the centuries of warfare that had made the Spaniards a fierce andwarlike race, had also filled Spain with frowning castles and embattledtowns. And such an embattled town was this same city of Avila, in which, in 1525, lived the stern and pious old grandee, Don Alphonso Sanchez deCepeda, his sentimental and romance-loving wife, the Donna Beatrix, andtheir twelve sturdy and healthy children. 

Religious warfare, as it is the most bitter and relentless of strifes, is also the most brutal. It turns the natures of men and women intoquite a different channel from the one in which the truths they arefighting for would seek to lead them; and of all relentless and brutalreligious wars, few have been more bitter than the one that for fullyfive hundred years had wasted the land of Spain. 

To battle for the Cross, to gain renown in fights against theInfidels--as the Moors were then called, --to "obtain martyrdom" amongthe followers of Mohammed--these were reckoned by the Christians ofcrusading days as the highest honor that life could bring or deathbestow. It is no wonder, therefore, that in a family, the father ofwhich had been himself a fighter of Infidels, and the mother a readerand dreamer of all the romantic stories that such conflicts create, thechildren also should be full of that spirit of hatred toward a conqueredfoe that came from so bitter and long-continuing a warfare. 

Don Alphonso's religion had little in it of cheerfulness and love. It was of the stern and pitiless kind that called for sacrifice andpenance, and all those uncomfortable and unnecessary forms by which toomany good people, even in this more enlightened day, think to ease theirtroubled consciences, or to satisfy the fancied demands of the GoodFather, who really requires none of these foolish and most unpleasantself-punishments. 

But such a belief was the rule in Don Alphonso's day, and when it couldlay so strong a hold upon grown men and women, it would, of course, be likely to work in peculiar ways with thoughtful and conscientiouschildren, who, understanding little of the real meaning of sacrifice andpenance, felt it their duty to do something as proof of their belief. 

So it came about that little ten-year-old Theresa, one of the numerousgirls of the Cepeda family, thought as deeply of these things as hersmall mind was capable. She was of a peculiarly sympathetic, romantic, and conscientious nature, and she felt it her duty to do somethingto show her devotion to the faith for which her father had fought sovaliantly, and which the nuns and priests, who were her teachers, sovigorously impressed upon her. 

She had been taught that alike the punishment or the glory that mustfollow her life on earth were to last forever. Forever! this was a wordthat even a thoughtful little maiden like Theresa could not comprehend. So she sought her mother. 

"Forever? how long is forever, mother mine?" she asked. 

But the Donna Beatrix was just then too deeply interested in the tragicstory of the two lovers, Calixto and Melibea, in the Senor Fernando deRojas' tear-compelling story, to be able to enter into the discussion ofso deep a question. 

"Forever, " she said, looking up from the thick and crabbed black-letterpages, "why forever is forever, child--always. Pray do not troubleme with such questions; just as I am in the midst of this beautifuldeath-scene too. "

The little girl found she could gain no knowledge from this source, andshe feared to question her stern and bigoted old father. So she soughther favorite brother Pedro--a bright little fellow of seven, who adoredand thoroughly believed in his sister Theresa. 

To Pedro, then, Theresa confided her belief that, if forever was so longa time as "always, " it would be most unpleasant to suffer "always, " ifby any chance they should do any thing wrong. It would be far better, so argued this little logician, to die now and end the problem, than tolive and run so great a risk. She told him, too, that, as they knew fromtheir mother's tales, the most beautiful, the most glorious way to diewas as a martyr among the infidel Moors. So she proposed to Pedro thatshe and he should not say a word to any one, but just start off at onceas crusaders on their own accounts, and lose their lives but save theirsouls as martyrs among the Moors. 

The suggestion had all the effect of novelty to the little Pedro, andwhile he did not altogether relish the idea of losing his life among theMoors, still the possibility of a change presented itself with all theattractions that the thought of trying something new always has forchildren. Besides, he had great respect for his sister's judgment. 

"Well, let us be crusaders, " he said, "and perhaps we need not bemartyrs, sister. I don't think that would be so very pleasant, doyou? Who knows; perhaps we may be victorious crusaders and conquer theInfidels just as did Ruy Diaz the Cid. (1) See here, Theresa; I have mysword and you can take your cross, and we can have such a nice crusade, and may be the infidel Moors will run away from us just as they did fromthe Cid and leave us their cities and their gold and treasure? Don't youremember what mother read us, how the Cid won Castelon, with its silverand its gold?"

(1) The Cid was the great hero of Spanish romance. The stories of hisvalor have been the joy of Spaniards, old and young, for centuries. Cidis a corruption of the Moorish word seyd or said, and means master. 

And the little fellow spouted most valiantly this portion of the famouspoem of the exploits of the Cid (the Poema del Cid), with the martialspirit of which stirring rhyme his romantic mother had filled herchildren:

 "Smite, smite, my knights, for mercy's sake--on boldly to the war; I am Ruy Diaz of Bivar, the Cid Campeador! Three hundred lances then were couched, with pennons streaming gay; Three hundred shields were pierced through--no steel the shock might stay;-- Three hundred hauberks were torn off in that encounter sore; Three hundred snow-white pennons were crimson-dyed in gore; Three hundred chargers wandered loose--their lords were overthrown; The Christians cry 'St. James for Spain!' the Moormen cry 'Mahoun!'"

Theresa applauded her little brother's eloquent recitation, and thoughthim a very smart boy; but she said rather sadly: "I fear me it will notbe that way, my Pedro; for martyrdom means, as mother has told us, thegiving up of our life rather than bow to the false faith of the Infidel, and thus to save our souls and have a crown of glory. "

"The crown would be very nice, I suppose, sister, " said practical youngPedro, "especially if it was all so fine as the one they say theyoung King Carlos(1) wears--Emperor, too, now, is he not? Could we beemperors, too, sister, if we were martyrs, and had each a crown? But wemust be crusaders first, I suppose. Come, let us go at once. "

(1) King Charles the Fifth was at this time King of Spain, and had justbeen elected Emperor of Germany. 

The road from granite-walled Avila to the south is across a wild anddesolate waste, frowned down upon on either hand by the savage crestsof the grim sierras of the Guadarrama. It winds along gorges and ravinesand rocky river-beds, and has always been, even in the days of Spanishpower and glory, about as untamed and savagely picturesque a road as onecould well imagine. 

Along this hard and desolate road, only a few days after theirdetermination had been reached, to start upon a crusade the brother andsister plodded. Theresa carried her crucifix, and Pedro his toy sword, while in a little wallet at his side were a few bits of food taken fromthe home larder. This stock of food had, of course, been taken withoutthe knowledge of the mother, who knew nothing of their crusade, andthis, therefore, furnished for Theresa another sin, for which she mustdo penance, and another reason for the desired martyrdom. 

They had really only proceeded a few miles into the mountains beyondAvila, but already their sturdy little legs were tired, and their stoutlittle backs were sore. Pedro thought crusading not such very great funafter all; he was always hungry and thirsty, and Theresa would only lethim take a bite once in a while. 

"Don't you suppose there is a Moorish castle somewhere around here thatwe could capture, and so get plenty to eat?" he inquired of his sister. "That is what the Cid was always finding. Don't you remember how nicelyhe got into Alcacer and slew eleven Infidel knights, and found ever somuch gold and things to eat? This is what he said, you know:

 "'On, on, my knights, and smite the foe! And falter not, I pray; For by the grace of God, I trow, The town is ours this day!'"

"O Pedro, dear, why will you think so much of things to eat, " groanedTheresa. "Do you not know that to be hungry is one way to be a martyr. And besides, it is, I doubt not, our just punishment for having takenany thing to eat without letting mother know. We must suffer and bestrong, little brother. "

"That's just like a girl, " cried Pedro, a trifle scornfully. "How can webe strong if we suffer? I can't, I know. "

But before Theresa could enter upon an explanation of this mostdifficult problem--one that has troubled many older heads than littlePedro's, --both the children started in surprise, and then involuntarilyshrunk closer to the dark gray rock in whose shadow they were resting. For there, not a hundred yards distant, coming around a turn in theroad, was one of the very Infidels they had come out to meet andconquer, or be martyred by. 

He was a rather imposing-looking but not a formidable old man. His cloakor mantle of brown stuff was worn and ragged, his turban was quiteas dingy, but the long white beard that fell upon his breast made hisswarthy face look even fiercer than it really was, and the stout staff, with which he helped himself over the uneven road, seemed to the littlecrusaders some terrible weapon of torture and of martyrdom. 

But Pedro was a valiant little fellow after all. The fighting spirit ofhis father the Don burned within him, and few little folks of seven knowwhat caution is. He whispered to his sister, whose hand he had at firstclutched in terror, a word of assurance. 

"Be not afraid, sister mine, " he said. "Yonder comes the Infidel we havegone forth to find. Do you suppose he has a whole great army followinghim? Hold up your crucifix, and I will strike him with my sword. Thecastle can't be far away, and perhaps we can conquer this old Infideland find a good dinner in his castle. That 's just what the Cid wouldhave done. You know what he said:

 "'Far from our land, far from Castile We here are banished; If with the Moors we battle not, I wot we get no bread. '

Let us battle with him at once. "

And before his sister with restraining hand, could hold him back theplucky young crusader flourished his sword furiously and charged downupon the old Moor, who now in turn started in surprise and drew asidefrom the path of the determined little warrior. 

 "Now yield thee, yield thee, pagan prince. Or die in crimson gore; I am Ruy Diaz of Bivar, The Cid Campeador!"

shouted the little crusader, charging against his pagan enemy at afurious rate. 

"O spare him, spare my brother, noble emir. Let me die in his stead, "cried the terrified Theresa, not quite so confident now as to thepleasure of martyrdom. 

The old man stretched out his staff and stopped the headlong dash ofthe boy. Then laying a hand lightly on his assailant's head he lookedsmilingly toward Theresa. 

"Neither prince nor emir am I, Christian maiden, " he said, "but the poorMorisco Abd-el-'Aman of Cordova, seeking my son Ali, who, men say, isservant to a family in Valladolid. Pray you if you have aught to eatgive some to me, for I am famishing. "

This was not exactly martyrdom; it was, in fact, quite the opposite, and the little Theresa was puzzled as to her duty in the matter. Pedro, however, was not at all undecided. 

"Give our bread and cake to a nasty old Moor?" he cried; "I should saywe will not, will we, sister? We need it for ourselves. Besides, whatdreadful thing is it that the Holy Inquisition does to people who succorthe infidel Moors?"

Theresa shuddered. She knew too well all the stories of the horriblepunishments that the Holy Office, known as the Inquisition of Spain, visited upon those who harbored Jews or aided the now degraded Moors. For so complete had been the conquest of the once proud possessors ofSouthern Spain, that they were usually known only by the contemptuoustitle of "Moriscoes, " and were despised and hated by their "chivalrous"Christian conquerors. 

But little Theresa de Cepeda was of so loving and generous a nature thateven the plea of an outcast and despised Morisco moved her to pity. Fromher earliest childhood she had delighted in helpful and generous deeds. She repeatedly gave away, so we are told, all her pocket-money incharity, and any sign of trouble or distress found her ready and anxiousto extend relief. There was really a good deal of the angelic in littleTheresa, and even the risk of arousing the wrath of the Inquisition, the walls of whose gloomy dungeon in Avila she had, so often looked uponwith awe, could not withhold her from wishing to help this poor old manwho was hunting for his lost son. 

"Nay, brother, " she said to little Pedro, "it can be not so very great acrime to give food to a starving man"; and much to Pedro's disgust, sheopened the wallet and emptied their little store of provisions into theold beggar's hand. 

"And wither are ye bound, little ones?" asked this "tramp" of the longago, as the children watched their precious dinner disappear behind hissnowy beard. 

"We are on a crusade, don Infidel, " replied Pedro, boldly. "A crusadeagainst your armies and castles, perhaps to capture them, and thus gainthe crown of martyrdom. "

The old Moor looked at them sadly. "There is scarce need for that, mychildren, " he said. "My people are but slaves; their armies and theircastles are lost; their beautiful cities are ruined, and there isneither conquest nor martyrdom for Christian youths and maidens to gainamong them. Go home, my little ones, and pray to Allah that you andyours may never know so much of sorrow and of trouble as do the poorMoriscoes of Spain this day. "

This was news to Theresa. No martyrdom to be obtained among the Moors?Where then was all the truth of her mother's romances, --where was allthe wisdom of her father's savage faith? She had always supposed thatthe Moors were monsters and djins, waiting with great fires and racksand sharpest cimeters to put to horrible death all young Christians whocame amongst them, and now here was one who begged for bread and pleadedfor pity like any common beggar of Avila. Evidently something was wrongin the home stories. 

As for little Pedro, he waxed more valiant as the danger lessened. Hewhetted his toy sword against the granite rocks and looked savagely atthe old man. 

"You have eaten all my bread, don Infidel, " he said, "and now you wouldlie about your people and your castles. You are no beggar; you are theKing of Cordova come here in this disguise to spy out the Christian'sland. I know all about you from my mother's stories. So you must die. Ishall send your head to our Emperor by my sister here, and when he shallask her who has done this noble deed she will say, just as did AlvarFanez to King Alfonso:

 'My Cid Campeador, O king, it was who girded brand: The Paynim king he hath o'ercome, the mightiest in the land Plenteous and sovereign is the spoil he from the Moor hath won; This portion, honored king and lord, he sendeth to your throne. '

"So, King of Cordova, bend down and let me cut off your head. "

The "King of Cordova" made no movement of compliance to this gentleinvitation, and the head-strong Pedro, springing toward him, would havecaught him by the beard, had not his gentle sister restrained him. 

"I do believe he is no king, my Pedro, " she said, "but only, as he says, a poor Morisco beggar. Let us rather try to help him. He hath no castlesI am sure, and as for his armies----"

"His armies! there they come; look, sister!" cried little Pedro, breaking into his sister's words; "now will you believe me?" andfollowing his gaze, Theresa herself started as she saw dashing down themountain highway what looked to her unpractised eye like a whole band ofMoorish cavalry with glimmering lances and streaming pennons. 

Pedro faced the charge with drawn sword. Theresa knelt on the groundwith silver crucifix upraised, expecting instant martyrdom, while theold Moorish tramp, Abd-el-'Aman, believing discretion to be the betterpart of valor, quietly dropped down by the side of the rocky roadway, for well he understood who were these latest comers. 

The Moorish cavalry, which proved to be three Spaniards on horseback, drew up before the young crusaders. 

"So, runaways, we have found you, " cried one of them, as he recognizedthe children. "Come, Theresa, what means this folly? Whither are you andPedro bound?"

"We were even starting for a crusade against the Moor, Brother Jago, "said Theresa, timidly, "but our Infidel friend here--why, where hath hegone?--says that there are neither Infidel castles nor Moorish armiesnow, and that therefore we may not be crusaders. "

"But I know that he doth lie, Brother Jago, " cried little Pedro, morevaliant still when he saw to what his Moorish cavalry was reduced. "Heis the King of Cordova, come here to spy out the land, and I was aboutto cut off his head when you did disturb us. "

Big brother Jago de Cepeda and the two servants of his father's houselaughed long and loudly. 

"Crusaders and kings, " he cried; "why, we shall have the Cid himselfhere, if we do but wait long enough. "

"Hush, brother, " said young Pedro, confidentially, "say it not soloudly. I did tell the Infidel that I was Ruy Diaz of Bivar, the CidCampeador--and he did believe me. "

And then the cavalry laughed louder than ever, and swooping downcaptured the young crusaders and set the truants before them on theiruncomfortable Cordova saddles. Then, turning around, they rode swiftlyback to Avila with the runaways, while the old Moor, glad to haveescaped rough handling from the Christian riders, grasped his staff andplodded on toward Avila and Valladolid. 

So the expedition for martyrdom and crusade came to an ignominiousend. But the pious desires of little Theresa did not. For, findingthat martyrdom was out of the question, she proposed to her ever-readybrother that they should become hermits, and for days the two childrenworked away trying to build a hermitage near their father's house. 

But the rough and heavy pieces of granite with which they sought tobuild their hermitage proved more than they could handle, and theirknowledge of mason-work was about as imperfect as had been theirfamiliarity with crusading and the country of the Moors. "The stonesthat we piled one upon another, " wrote Theresa herself in later years, "immediately fell down, and so it came to pass that we found no means ofaccomplishing our wish. "

The pluck and piety, however, that set this conscientious andsympathetic little girl to such impossible tasks were certain to blossominto something equally hard and unselfish when she grew to womanhood. And so it proved. Her much-loved but romance-reading mother died whenshe was twelve years old, and Theresa felt her loss keenly. 

She was a very clever and ambitious girl, and with a mother's guidinghand removed she became impatient under the restraints which herstern old father, Don Alphonso, placed upon her. At sixteen she was animpetuous, worldly-minded, and very vain though very dignified younglady. Then her father, fearful as to her future, sent her to a convent, with orders that she should be kept in strict seclusion. 

Such a punishment awoke all the feelings of conscientiousness andself-conviction that had so influenced her when she was a little girl, and Theresa, left to her own thoughts, first grew morbid, and then fellsick. 

During her sickness she resolved to become a nun, persuaded herever-faithful brother, Pedro, to become a friar, and when Don Alphonso, their father, refused his consent, the brother and sister, repeating thefolly of their childhood, again ran away from home. 

Then their father, seeing the uselessness of resistance, consented, andTheresa, at the age of twenty, entered a convent in Avila, and became anun in what was known as the Order of the Carmelites. 

The life of these nuns was strict, secluded, and silent; but theconscientious nature of Theresa found even the severities of this lonelylife not sufficiently hard, and attaining to a position of influence inthe order she obtained permission from the Pope in 1562 to found a neworder which should be even more strict in its rules, and therefore, soshe believed, more helpful. Thus was founded the Order of BarefootedCarmelites, a body of priests and nuns, who have in their peculiar wayaccomplished very much for charity, gentleness, and self-help in theworld, and whose schools and convents have been instituted in all partsof the earth. 

Theresa de Cepeda died in 1582, greatly beloved and revered for herstrict but gentle life, her great and helpful charities, and her sinceredesire to benefit her fellow-men. After her death, so great was therespect paid her that she was canonized, as it is called: that is, lifted up as an example of great goodness to the world; and she isto-day known and honored among devout Roman Catholics as St. Theresa ofAvila. 

Whatever we may think of the peculiar way in which her life was spent;however we may regard the story of her troubles with her conscience, herunderstanding of what she deemed her duty, and her sinking of what mighthave been a happy and joyous life in the solitude and severity of aconvent, we cannot but think of her as one who wished to do right, andwho desired above all else to benefit the world in which she lived andlabored. Her story is that of a most extraordinary and remarkable woman, who devoted her life to what she deemed the thing demanded of her. Could we not, all of us, profitably attempt to live in something like akindred spirit to that helpful and unselfish one that actuated this girlof the Spanish sierras?

"Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, " says George Eliot, "foundressof nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattainedgoodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead ofcentring in some long-recognizable deed. "

But if a girl or boy, desiring to do right, will disregard thehindrances, and not simply sit and sob after an unattained goodness--if, instead, they will but do the duty nearest at hand manfully andwell, the reward will come in something even more desirable than a"long-recognizable deed. " It will come in the very self-gratificationthat will at last follow every act of courtesy, of friendliness, andof self-denial, and such a life will be of more real value to the worldthan all the deeds of all the crusaders, or than even the stern andaustere charities of a Saint Theresa. 

ELIZABETH OF TUDOR: THE GIRL OF THE HERTFORD MANOR. 

(Afterward Queen Elizabeth of England; the "Good Queen Bess. ") A. D. 1548. 

The iron-shod hoofs of the big gray courser rang sharply on thefrozen ground, as, beneath the creaking boughs of the long-armed oaks, Launcelot Crue, the Lord Protector's fleetest courser-man, gallopedacross the Hertford fells or hills, and reined up his horse within thegreat gates of Hatfield manor-house. 

"From the Lord Protector, " he said; and Master Avery Mitchell, thefeodary, (1) who had been closely watching for this same courser-manfor several anxious hours, took from his hands a scroll, on which wasinscribed:

(1) An old English term for the guardian of "certain wards of thestate, "--young persons under guardianship of the government. 

"To Avery Mitchell, feodary of the Wards in Herts, at Halfield House. From the Lord Protector, THESE:"

And next, the courser-man, in secrecy, unscrewed one of the bullionbuttons on his buff jerkin, and taking from it a scrap of paper, handedthis also to the watchful feodary. Then, his mission ended, he repairedto the buttery to satisfy his lusty English appetite with a big dishof pasty, followed by ale and "wardens" (as certain hard pears, usedchiefly for cooking, were called in those days), while the cautiousAvery Mitchell, unrolling the scrap of paper, read:

"In secrecy, THESE: Under guise of mummers place a half-score good menand true in your Yule-tide maskyng. Well armed and safely conditioned. They will be there who shall command. Look for the green dragon ofWantley. On your allegiance. This from ye wit who. "

Scarcely had the feodary read, re-read, and then destroyed this secretand singular missive, when the "Ho! hollo!" of Her Grace the Princess'outriders rang on the crisp December air, and there galloped up to thebroad doorway of the manor-house, a gayly costumed train of lords andladies, with huntsmen and falconers and yeomen following on behind. Central in the group, flushed with her hard gallop through the wintryair, a young girl of fifteen, tall and trim in figure, sat her horsewith the easy grace of a practised and confident rider. Her long velvethabit was deeply edged with fur, and both kirtle and head-gear were ofa rich purple tinge, while from beneath the latter just peeped a heavycoil of sunny, golden hair. Her face was fresh and fair, as should bethat of any young girl of fifteen, but its expression was rather that ofhigh spirits and of heedless and impetuous moods than of simple maidenlybeauty. 

"Tilly-vally, my lord, " she cried, dropping her bridle-rein into thehands of a waiting groom, "'t was my race to-day, was it not? Odds fish, man!" she cried out sharply to the attendant groom; "be ye easier withRoland's bridle there. One beast of his gentle mettle were worth a scoreof clumsy varlets like to you! Well, said I not right, my Lord Admiral;is not the race fairly mine, I ask?" and, careless in act as in speech, she gave the Lord Admiral's horse, as she spoke, so sharp a cut with herriding whip as to make the big brute rear in sudden surprise, andalmost unhorse its rider, while an unchecked laugh came from its fairtormentor. 

"Good faith, Mistress, " answered Sir Thomas Seymour, the Lord HighAdmiral, gracefully swallowing his exclamation of surprise, "yourladyship hath fairly won, and, sure, hath no call to punish both myselfand my good Selim here by such unwarranted chastisement. Will your gracedismount?"

And, vaulting from his seat, he gallantly extended his hand to help theyoung girl from her horse; while, on the same instant, another in hertrain, a handsome young fellow of the girl's own age, knelt on thefrozen ground and held her stirrup. 

But this independent young maid would have none of their courtesies. Ignoring the outstretched hands of both the man and boy, she spranglightly from her horse, and, as she did so, with a sly and sudden pushof her dainty foot, she sent the kneeling lad sprawling backward, whileher merry peal of laughter rang out as an accompaniment to his downfall. 

"Without your help, my lords--without your help, so please you both, "she cried. "Why, Dudley, " she exclaimed, in mock surprise, as she threwa look over her shoulder at the prostrate boy, "are you there? Beshrewme, though, you do look like one, of goodman Roger's Dorking cocks inthe poultry yonder, so red and ruffled of feather do you seem. There, see now, I do repent me of my discourtesy. You, Sir Robert, shall squireme to the hall, and Lord Seymour must even content himself with playingthe gallant to good Mistress Ashley"; and, leaning on the arm of thenow pacified Dudley, the self-willed girl tripped lightly up theentrance-steps. 

Self-willed and thoughtless--even rude and hoydenish--we may think herin these days of gentler manners and more guarded speech. But those wereless refined and cultured times than these in which we live; andthe rough, uncurbed nature of "Kinge Henrye the viii. Of Most FamousMemorye, " as the old chronicles term the "bluff King Hal, " reappeared toa noticeable extent in the person of his second child, the daughterof ill-fated Anne Boleyn--"my ladye's grace" the Princess Elizabeth ofEngland. 

And yet we should be readier to excuse this impetuous young princess ofthree hundred years ago than were even her associates and enemies. Forenemies she had, poor child, envious and vindictive ones, who sought towork her harm. Varied and unhappy had her young life already been. Bornamid splendid hopes, in the royal palace of Greenwich; called Elizabethafter that grandmother, the fair heiress of the House of York, whosemarriage to a prince of the House of Lancaster had ended the long andcruel War or the Roses; she had been welcomed with the peal of bells andthe boom of cannon, and christened with all the regal ceremonial of KingHenry's regal court. Then, when scarcely three years old, disgraced bythe wicked murder of her mother, cast off and repudiated by her brutalfather, and only received again to favor at the christening of her babybrother, passing her childish days in grim old castles and a wickedcourt, --she found herself, at thirteen, fatherless as well asmotherless, and at fifteen cast on her own resources, the sport of men'sambitions and of conspirators' schemes. To-day the girl of fifteen, tenderly reared, shielded from trouble by a mother's watchful love and afather's loving care, can know but little of the dangers that compassedthis princess of England, the Lady Elizabeth. Deliberately separatedfrom her younger brother, the king, by his unwise and selfishcounsellors, hated by her elder sister, the Lady Mary, as the daughterof the woman who had made HER mother's life so miserable, she was, evenin her manor-home of Hatfield, where she should have been most secure, in still greater jeopardy. For this same Lord Seymour of Sudleye, whowas at once Lord High Admiral of England, uncle to the king, and brotherof Somerset the Lord Protector, had by fair promises and lavish giftsbound to his purpose this defenceless girl's only protectors, MasterParry, her cofferer, or steward, and Mistress Katherine Ashley, hergoverness. And that purpose was to force the young princess into amarriage with himself, so as to help his schemes of treason against theLord Protector, and get into his own hands the care of the boy king andthe government of the realm. It was a bold plot, and, if unsuccessful, meant attainder and death for high treason; but Seymour, ambitious, reckless, and unprincipled, thought only of his own desires, and caredlittle for the possible ruin into which he was dragging the unsuspectingand orphaned daughter of the king who had been his ready friend andpatron. 

So matters stood at the period of our store, on the eve of the Christmasfestivities of 1548, as, on, the arm of her boy escort, Sir RobertDudley, gentleman usher at King Edward's court, and, years after, thefamous Earl of Leicester of Queen Elizabeth's day, the royal maidenentered the hall of Hatfield House. And, within the great hall, she wasgreeted by Master Parry, her cofferer, Master Runyon, her yeoman of therobes, and Master Mitchell, the feodary. Then, with a low obeisance, thefeodary presented her the scroll which had been brought him, post-haste, by Launcelot Crue, the courser-man. 

"What, good Master Avery, " exclaimed Elizabeth, as she ran her eye overthe scroll, "you to be Lord of Misrule and Master of the Revels! And bymy Lord of Somerset's own appointing? I am right glad to learn it. "

And this is what she read:

Imprimis(1): I give leave to Avery Mitchell, feodary, gentleman, to beLord of Misrule of all good orders, at the Manor of Hatfield, during thetwelve days of Yule-tide. And, also, I give free leave to the said AveryMitchell to command all and every person or persons whatsoever, as wellservants as others, to be at his command whensoever be shall sound histrumpet or music, and to do him good service, as though I were presentmyself, at their perils. I give full power and authority to his lordshipto break all locks, bolts, bars, doors, and latches to come at allthose who presume to disobey his lordship's commands. God save the King. 

"SOMERSET. "

(1) A Latin term signifying "in the first place, " or "to commence with, "and used as the opening of legal or official directions. 

It was Christmas Eve. The great hall of Hatfield House gleamed withthe light of many candles that flashed upon the sconce and armor andpolished floor. Holly and mistletoe, rosemary and bay, and all thedecorations of an old-time English Christmas were tastefully arranged. A burst of laughter ran through the hall, as through the ample doorway, and down the broad stair, trooped the Motley train of the Lord ofMisrule to open the Christmas revels. A fierce and ferocious-lookingfellow was he, with his great green mustache and his ogre-like face. Hisdress was a gorgeous parti-colored jerkin and half-hose, trunks, ruff, slouch-boots of Cordova leather, and high befeathered steeple hat. Hislong staff, topped with a fool's head, cap, and bells, rang loudly onthe floor, as, preceded by his diminutive but pompous page, he led histrain around and around the great hall, lustily singing the chorus:

 "Like prince and king he leads the ring; Right merrily we go. Sing hey-trix, trim-go-trix, Under the mistletoe!"

A menagerie let loose, or the most dyspeptic of after-dinner dreams, could not be more bewildering than was this motley train of the Lordof Misrule. Giants and dwarfs, dragons and griffins, hobby-horses andgoblins, Robin Hood and the Grand Turk, bears and boars and fantasticanimals that never had a name, boys and girls, men and women, in everyimaginable costume and device--around and around the hall they went, still ringing out the chorus:

 "Sing hey-trix, trim-go-trix, Under the mistletoe!"

Then, standing in the centre of his court, the Lord of Misrule badehis herald declare that from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night he wasLord Supreme; that, with his magic art, he transformed all there intochildren, and charged them, on their fealty to act only as such. "Iabsolve them all from wisdom, " he said; "I bid them be just wise enoughto make fools of themselves, and do decree that none shall sit apart inpride and eke in self-sufficiency to laugh at others"; and then the funcommenced. 

Off in stately Whitehall, in the palace of the boy king, her brother, the revels were grander and showier; but to the young Elizabeth, not yetskilled in all the stiffness of the royal court, the Yule-tide feastat Hatfield House brought pleasure enough; and so, seated at herholly-trimmed virginal--that great-great-grandfather of the pianoof to-day, --she, whose rare skill as a musician has come down to us, would--when wearied with her "prankes and japes"--"tap through" somefitting Christmas carol, or that older lay of the Yule-tide "Mumming":

To shorten winter's sadness see where the folks with gladness Disguised, are all a-coming, right wantonly a-mumming, Fa-la! "Whilst youthful sports are lasting, to feasting turn our fasting: With revels and with wassails make grief and care our vassals, Fa-la!"

The Yule-log had been noisily dragged in "to the firing, " and as thebig sparks raced up the wide chimney, the boar's head and the tankardof sack, the great Christmas candle and the Christmas pie, were escortedaround the room to the flourish of trumpets and welcoming shouts; theLord of Misrule, with a wave of his staff, was about to give the orderfor all to unmask, when suddenly there appeared in the circle a newcharacter--a great green dragon, as fierce and ferocious as well couldbe, from his pasteboard jaws to his curling canvas tail. The greendragon of Wantley! Terrified urchins backed hastily away from hishorrible jaws, and the Lord of Misrule gave a sudden and visible start. The dragon himself, scarce waiting for the surprise to subside, wavedhis paw for silence, and said, in a hollow, pasteboardy voice:

"Most noble Lord of Misrule, before your feast commences and the masksare doff'd, may we not as that which should give good appetite toall, --with your lordship's permit and that of my lady's grace, --telleach some wonder-filling tale as suits the goodly time of Yule? Herebe stout maskers can tell us strange tales of fairies and goblins, or, perchance, of the foreign folk with whom they have trafficked inCalicute and Affrica, Barbaria, Perew, and other diverse lands andcountries over-sea. And after they have ended, then will I essay a talethat shall cap them all, so past belief shall it appear. "

The close of the dragon's speech, of course, made them all the morecurious; and the Lady Elizabeth did but speak for all when she said: "Ipray you, good Sir Dragon, let us have your tale first. We have had enowof Barbaria and Perew. If that yours may be so wondrous, let us hear iteven now, and then may we decide. "

"As your lady's grace wishes, " said the dragon. "But methinks when youhave heard me through, you would that it had been the last or else nottold at all. "

"Your lordship of Misrule and my lady's grace must know, " began thedragon, "that my story, though a short, is a startling one. Once on atime there lived a king, who, though but a boy, did, by God's grace, in talent, industry, perseverance, and knowledge, surpass both his ownyears and the belief of men. And because he was good and gentle alikeand conditioned beyond the measure of his years, he was the greater preyto the wicked wiles of traitorous men. And one such, high in the king'scourt, thought to work him ill; and to carry out his ends did wantonlyawaken seditious and rebellious intent even among the king's kithand kin, whom lie traitorously sought to wed, --his royal and youngersister, --nay, start' not my lady's grace!" exclaimed the dragon quickly, as Elizabeth turned upon him a look of sudden and haughty surprise. "Allis known! And this is the ending of my wondrous tale. My Lord Seymourof Sudleye is this day taken for high treason and haled(1) to the Tower. They of your own household are held as accomplice to the Lord Admiral'swicked intent, and you, Lady Elizabeth Tudor, are by order of thecouncil to be restrained in prison wards in this your manor of Hatfielduntil such time as the king's Majesty and the honorable council shalldecide. This on your allegiance!"

(1) Haled--dragged, forcibly conveyed. 

The cry of terror that the dragon's words awoke, died into silence asthe Lady Elizabeth rose to her feet, flushed with anger. 

"Is this a fable or the posy of a ring, Sir Dragon?" she said, sharply. "Do you come to try or tempt me, or is this perchance but some part ofmy Lord of Misrule's Yule-tide mumming? 'Sblood, sir; only cravens sneakbehind masks to strike and threaten. Have off your disguise, if you bea true man; or, by my word as Princess of England, he shall bitterly ruethe day who dares to befool the daughter of Henry Tudor!"

"As you will, then, my lady, " said the dragon. "Do you doubt me now?"and, tearing off his pasteboard wrapping, he stood disclosed beforethem all as the grim Sir Robert Trywhitt, chief examiner of the LordProtector's council. "Move not at your peril, " he said, as a stir in thethrong seemed to indicate the presence of some brave spirits who wouldhave shielded their young princess. "Master Feodary, bid your varletsstand to their arms. "

And at a word from Master Avery Mitchell, late Lord of Misrule, thereflashed from beneath the cloaks of certain tall figures on the circle'sedge the halberds of the guard. The surprise was complete. The LadyElizabeth was a prisoner in her own manor-house, and the Yule-tiderevels had reached a sudden and sorry ending. 

And yet, once again, under this false accusation, did the hot spirit ofthe Tudors flame in the face and speech of the Princess Elizabeth. 

"Sir Robert Trywhitt, " cried the brave young girl, "these be but lyingrumors that do go against my honor and my fealty. God knoweth they beshameful slanders, sir; for the which, besides the desire I have to seethe King's Majesty, I pray you let me also be brought straight beforethe court that I may disprove these perjured tongues. "

But her appeal was not granted. For months she was kept close prisonerat Hatfield House, subject daily to most rigid cross-examination by SirRobert Trywhitt for the purpose of implicating her if possible in theLord Admiral's plot. But all in vain; and at last even Sir Robert gaveup the attempt, and wrote to the council that "the Lady Elizabeth hath agood wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy. "

Lord Seymour of Sudleye, was beheaded for treason on Tower Hill, andothers, implicated in his plots, were variously punished; but even"great policy" cannot squeeze a lie out of the truth, and Elizabeth wasfinally declared free of the stain of treason. 

Experience, which is a hard teacher, often brings to light the best thatis in us. It was so in this case. For, as one writer says: "The long andharassing ordeal disclosed the splendid courage, the reticence, the rarediscretion, which were to carry the Princess through many an awful perilin the years to come. Probably no event of her early girlhood went sofar toward making a woman of Elizabeth as did this miserable affair. "

Within ten years thereafter the Lady Elizabeth ascended the throneof England. Those ten years covered many strange events, many varyingfortunes--the death of her brother, the boy King Edward, the sad tragedyof Lady Jane Grey, Wyatt's rebellion, the tanner's revolt, and all thelong horror of the reign of "Bloody Mary. " You may read of all this inhistory, and may see how, through it all, the young princess grew stillmore firm of will, more self-reliant, wise, and strong, developing allthose peculiar qualities that helped to make her England's greatestqueen, and one of the most wonderful women in history. But throughall her long and most historic life, --a life of over seventy years, forty-five of which were passed as England's queen, --scarce any incidentmade so lasting an impression upon her as when, in Hatfield House, thefirst shock of the false charge of treason fell upon the thoughtlessgirl of fifteen in the midst of the Christmas revels. 

CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN: THE GIRL OF THE NORTHERN FIORDS. 

A. D. 1636. 

There were tears and trouble in Stockholm; there was sorrow inevery house and hamlet in Sweden; there was consternation throughoutProtestant Europe. Gustavus Adolphus was dead! The "Lion of the North"had fallen on the bloody and victorious field of Lutzen, and only a verysmall girl of six stood as the representative of Sweden's royalty. 

The States of Sweden--that is, the representatives of the differentsections and peoples of the kingdom--gathered in haste within theRiddarhaus, or Hall of Assembly, in Stockholm. There was much anxiouscontroversy over the situation. The nation was in desperate strait, andsome were for one thing and some were for another. There was even talkof making the government a republic, like the state of Venice; and thesupporters of the king of Poland, cousin to the dead King Gustavus, openly advocated his claim to the throne. 

But the Grand Chancellor, Axel Oxenstiern, one of Sweden's greateststatesmen, acted promptly. 

"Let there be no talk between us, " he said, "of Venetian republics orof Polish kings. We have but one king--the daughter of the immortalGustavus!"

Then up spoke one of the leading representatives of the peasant class, Lars Larsson, the deputy from the western fiords. 

"Who is this daughter of Gustavus?" he demanded. "How do we know thisis no trick of yours, Axel Oxenstiern? How do we know that King Gustavushas a daughter? We have never seen her. "

"You shall see her at once, " replied the Chancellor; and leaving theHall for an instant, he returned speedily, leading a little girl bythe hand. With a sudden movement he lifted her to the seat of the highsilver throne that could only be occupied by the kings of Sweden. 

"Swedes, behold your king!"

Lars Larsson, the deputy, pressed close to the throne on which the smallfigure perched silent, yet with a defiant little look upon her face. 

"She hath the face of the Grand Gustavus, " he said. "Look, brothers, thenose, the eyes, the very brows are his. "

"Aye, " said Oxenstiern; "and she is a soldier's daughter. I myself didsee her, when scarce three years old, clap her tiny hands and laughaloud when the guns of Calmar fortress thundered a salute. 'Shemust learn to bear it, ' said Gustavus our king; 'she is a soldier'sdaughter. '"

"Hail, Christina!" shouted the assembly, won by the proud bearing of thelittle girl and by her likeness to her valiant father. "We will have herand only her for our queen!"

"Better yet, brothers, " cried Lars Larsson, now her most loyalsupporter; "she sits upon the throne of the kings; let her be proclaimedKing of Sweden. "

And so it was done. And with their wavering loyalty kindled into asudden flame, the States of Sweden "gave a mighty shout" and cried asone man, "Hail, Christina, King of Sweden!"

There was strong objection in Sweden to the rule of a woman; and theeducation of this little girl was rather that of a prince than of aprincess. She was taught to ride and to shoot, to hunt and to fence, to undertake all of a boy's exercises, and to endure all a boy'sprivations. She could bring down a hare, at the first shot, from theback of a galloping horse; she could outride the most expert huntsman inher train. 

So she grew from childhood into girlhood, and at thirteen was as boldand fearless, as wilful and self-possessed as any young fellow oftwenty-one. But besides all this she was a wonderful scholar; indeed, she would be accounted remarkable even in these days of brightgirl-graduates. At thirteen she was a thorough Greek scholar; shewas learned in mathematics and astronomy, the classics, history, andphilosophy; and she acquired of her own accord German, Italian, Spanish, and French. 

Altogether, this girl Queen of the North was as strange a compound ofscholar and hoyden, pride and carelessness, ambition and indifference, culture and rudeness, as ever, before her time or since, were combinedin the nature of a girl of thirteen. And it is thus that our story findsher. 

One raw October morning in the year 1639, there was stir and excitementat the palace in Stockholm. A courier had arrived bearing importantdispatches to the Council of Regents which governed Sweden during theminority of the Queen, and there was no one to officially meet him. 

Closely following the lackey who received him, the courier strode intothe council-room of the palace. But the council-room was vacant. 

It was not a very elegant apartment, this council-room of the palaceof the kings of Sweden. Although a royal apartment, its appearance wasample proof that the art of decoration was as yet unknown in Sweden. Theroom was untidy and disordered; the council-table was strewn with theungathered litter of the last day's council, and even the remains of acoarse lunch mingled with all this clutter. The uncomfortable-lookingchairs all were out of place, and above the table was a sort oftemporary canopy to prevent the dust and spiders' webs upon the ceilingfrom dropping upon the councillors. 

The courier gave a sneering look upon this evidence that the refinementand culture which marked at least the palaces and castles of otherEuropean countries were as yet little considered in Sweden. Then, important and impatient, he turned to the attendant. "Well, " he said, "and is there none here to receive my dispatches? They call for--houf!so! what manners are these?"

What manners indeed! The courier might well ask this. For, plump againsthim, as he spoke, dashed, first a girl and then a boy who had dartedfrom somewhere into the council-chamber. Too absorbed in their ownconcerns to notice who, if any one, was in the room, they had runagainst and very nearly upset the astonished bearer of dispatches. Still more astonished was he, when the girl, using his body as a barrieragainst her pursuer, danced and dodged around him to avoid being caughtby her pursuer--a fine-looking young lad of about her own age--KarlGustav, her cousin. The scandalized bearer of dispatches to the SwedishCouncil of Regents shook himself free from the girl's strong grasp andseizing her by the shoulder, demanded, sternly:

"How now, young mistress! Is this seemly conduct toward a stranger andan imperial courier?"

The girl now for the first time noticed the presence of a stranger. Tooexcited in her mad dash into the room to distinguish him from one ofthe palace servants, she only learned the truth by the courier's harshwords. A sudden change came over her. She drew herself up haughtily andsaid to the attendant:

"And who is this officious stranger, Klas?"

The tone and manner of the question again surprised the courier, and helooked at the speaker, amazed. What he saw was an attractive young girlof thirteen, short of stature, with bright hazel eyes, a vivacious face, now almost stern in its expression of pride and haughtiness. A man'sfur cap rested upon the mass of tangled light-brown hair which, tiedimperfectly with a simple knot of ribbon, fell down upon her neck. Hershort dress of plain gray stuff hung loosely about a rather trim figure;and a black scarf, carelessly tied, encircled her neck. In short, hesaw a rather pretty, carelessly dressed, healthy, and just now veryhaughty-looking young girl, who seemed more like a boy in speech andmanners, --and one who needed to be disciplined and curbed. 

Again the question came: "Who is this man, and what seeks he here, Klas?I ask. "

"'T is a courier with dispatches for the council, Madam, " replied theman. 

"Give me the dispatches, " said the girl; "I will attend to them. "

"You, indeed!" The courier laughed grimly. "The dispatches from theEmperor of Germany are for no hairbrained maid to handle. These are tobe delivered to the Council of Regents alone. "

"I will have naught of councils or regents, Sir Courier, save when itpleases me, " said the girl, tapping the floor with an angry foot. "Giveme the dispatches, I say, --I am the King of Sweden!"

"You--a girl--king?" was all that the astonished courier could stammerout. Then, as the real facts dawned upon him, he knelt at the feet ofthe young queen and presented his dispatches. 

"Withdraw, sir!" said Christina, taking the papers from his hand withbut the scant courtesy of a nod; "we will read these and return asuitable answer to your master. "

The courier withdrew, still dazed at this strange turn of affairs; andChristina, leaning carelessly against the council-table, opened thedispatches. 

Suddenly she burst into a merry but scarcely lady-like laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! this is too rare a joke, Karl, " she cried. "Lord Chancellor, Mathias, Torstenson!" she exclaimed, as these members of her councilentered the apartment, "what think you? Here come dispatches from theEmperor of Germany begging that you, my council, shall consider thewisdom of wedding me to his son and thereby closing the war! His son, indeed! Ferdinand the Craven!"

"And yet, Madam, " suggested the wise Oxenstiern, "it is a matter thatshould not lightly be cast aside. In time you must needs be married. Theconstitution of the kingdom doth oblige you to. "

"Oblige!" and the young girl turned upon the gray-headed chancelloralmost savagely. "Oblige! and who, Sir Chancellor, upon earth shallOBLIGE me to do so, if I do it not of mine own will? Say not OBLIGE tome. "

This was vigorous language for a girl of scarce fourteen; but it was"Christina's way, " one with which both the Council and the people soongrew familiar. It was the Vasa(1) nature in her, and it was alwaysprominent in this spirited young girl--the last descendant of thatmasterful house. 

(1) Vasa was the family name of her father and the ancient king ofSweden. 

But now the young Prince Karl Gustavus had something to say. 

"Ah, cousin mine, " and he laid a strong though boyish hand upon theyoung girl's arm. "What need for couriers or dispatches that speak ofsuitors for your hand? Am not I to be your husband? From babyhood youhave so promised me. "

Christina again broke into a loud and merry laugh. 

"Hark to the little burgomaster, "(1) she cried; "much travel hath madehim, I do fear me, soft in heart and head. Childish promises, Karl. Letsuch things be forgotten now. You are to be a soldier--I, a queen. "

(1) Prince Charles Gustavus, afterward Charles XI. , King of Sweden, andfather of the famous Charles XII. , was cousin to Christina. He was shortand thick-set, and so like a little Dutchman that Christina often calledhim "the little burgomaster. " At the time of this sketch he had justreturned from a year of travel through Europe. 

"And yet, Madam, " said Mathias, her tutor, "all Europe hath for yearsregarded Prince Karl as your future husband. "

"And what care I for that?" demanded the girl, hotly. "Have done, havedone, sirs! You do weary me with all this. Let us to the hunt. AxelDagg did tell me of a fine roebuck in the Maelar woods. See you to thecourier of the Emperor and to his dispatches, Lord Chancellor; I carenot what you tell him, if you do but tell him no. And, stay; where isthat round little Dutchman, Van Beunigen, whom you did complain butyesterday was sent among us by his government to oppose the advicesof our English friends. He is a greater scholar than horseman, or Imistake. Let us take him in our hunting-party, Karl; and see to it thathe doth have one of our choicest horses. "

The girl's mischief was catching. Her cousin dropped his serious look, and, seeking the Dutch envoy, with due courtesy invited him to join theQueen's hunt. 

"Give him black Hannibal, Jous, " Christina had said to her groom; andwhen the Dutch envoy, Van Beunigen, came out to join the hunting-party, too much flattered by the invitation to remember that he was a poorhorseman, Jous, the groom, held black Hannibal in unsteady check, whilethe big horse champed and fretted, and the hunting-party awaited the newmember. 

But Jous, the groom, noted the Dutchman's somewhat alarmed look at thebig black animal. 

"Would it not be well, good sir, " he said, "that you do choose somesteadier animal than Hannibal here? I pray you let me give you one lessrestive. So, Bror Andersson, " he called to one of the under-grooms, "let the noble envoy have your cob, and take you back Hannibal to thestables. "

But no, the envoy of the States of Holland would submit to no suchchange. He ride a servant's horse, indeed!

"Why, sirrah groom, " he said to good-hearted Jous, "I would have youknow that I am no novice in the equestrian art. Far from it, man. Ihave read every treatise on the subject from Xenophon downward; and whathorse can know more than I?"

So friendly Jous had nothing more to say, but hoisted the puffed-upDutch scholar into the high saddle; and away galloped the hunt towardthe Maelar woods. 

As if blind to his own folly, Van Beunigen, the envoy, placed himselfnear to the young Queen; and Christina, full of her own mischief, begangravely to compliment him on his horsemanship, and suggested a gallop. 

Alas, fatal moment. For while he yet swayed and jolted upon the back ofthe restive Hannibal, and even endeavored to discuss with the fair youngscholar who rode beside him, the "Melanippe" of Euripides, the same fairscholar--who, in spite of all her Greek learning was only a mischievousand sometimes very rude young girl--faced him with a sober countenance. 

"Good Herr Van Beunigen, " she said, "your Greek is truly as smooth asyour face. But it seems to me you do not sufficiently catch the spiritof the poet's lines commmencing

 [gr andrwn de polloi tou gelwtos ouneka]. (1)

I should rather say that [gr tou gelwtos] should be----"

(1) The commencement of an extract from the "Melanippe" of Euripides, meaning, "To raise vain laughter, many exercise the arts of satire. "

Just what [gr tou gelwtos] should be she never declared, for, as theenvoy of Holland turned upon her a face on which Greek learning andanxious horsemanship struggled with one another, Christina slyly touchedblack Hannibal lightly with her riding-whip. 

Light as the touch was, however, it was enough. The unruly horse rearedand plunged. The startled scholar, with a cry of terror, flung up hishands, and then clutched black Hannibal around the neck. Thus, in themanner of John Gilpin, "His horse, who never in that way Had handled been before, What thing upon his back had got Did wonder more and more. 

 "Away went Gilpin, neck or nought; Away went hat and wig; He never dreamt when he set out, Of running such a rig. "

Minus hat and wig, too, the poor envoy dashed up the Maelar highway, while Christina, laughing loudly, galloped after him in a mad race, followed by all her hunting-party. 

The catastrophe was not far away. The black horse, like the ill-tempered"bronchos" of our western plains, "bucked" suddenly, and over hishead like a flash went the discomfited Dutchman. In an instant, Greeklearning and Dutch diplomacy lay sprawling in a Swedish roadway, fromwhich Jous, the groom, speedily lifted the groaning would-be horseman. 

Even in her zeal for study, really remarkable in so young a girl, Christina could not forego her misguided love of power and her tendencyto practical joking, and one day she even made two grave philosophers, who were holding a profound discussion in her presence over some deepphilosophic subject, suddenly cease their arguments to play with her atbattledore and shuttlecock. 

A girlhood of uncontrolled power, such as hers, could lead but to oneresult. Self-gratification is the worst form of selfishness, andnever can work good to any one. Although she was a girl of wonderfulcapabilities, of the blood of famous kings and conquerors, giving suchpromises of greatness that scholars and statesmen alike prophesied forher a splendid future, Christina, Queen of Sweden, made only a failureof her life. 

At eighteen she had herself formally crowned as KING of Sweden. But attwenty-five she declared herself sick and tired of her duties as queen, and at twenty-eight, at the height of her power and fame, she actuallydid resign her throne in favor of her cousin, Prince Karl, --publiclyabdicated, and at once left her native land to lead the life of adisappointed wanderer. 

The story of this remarkable woman is one that holds a lesson forall. Eccentric, careless, and fearless; handsome, witty, and learned;ambitious, shrewd, and visionary, --she was one of the strangestcompounds of "unlikes" to be met with in history. 

She deliberately threw away a crown, wasted a life that might have beenhelpful to her subjects, regarded only her own selfish and personaldesires, and died a prematurely old woman at sixty-five, unloved andunhonored. 

Her story, if it teaches any thing, assures us that it is always bestto have in youth, whether as girl or boy, the guidance and directionof some will that is acknowledged and respected. Natures unformed orover-indulged, with none to counsel or command, generally go wrong. A mother's love, a father's care, these--though young people may notalways read them aright--are needed for the moulding of character; whileto every bright young girl, historic or unhistoric, princess or peasant, Swedish queen or modern American maiden, will it at last be apparentthat the right way is always the way of modesty and gentleness, of highambitions, perhaps, but, always and everywhere, of thoughtfulness forothers and kindliness to all. 

MA-TA-OKA OF POW-HA-TAN: THE GIRL OF THE VIRGINIA FORESTS. 

(Generally known as "The Princess Pocahontas. ") A. D. 1607. 

Throughout that portion of the easterly United States where the noblebay called the Chesapeake cuts Virginia in two, and where the James, broadest of all the rivers of the "Old Dominion, " rolls its glitteringwaters toward the sea, there lived, years ago, a notable race of men. 

For generations they had held the land, and, though their clothing wasscanty and their customs odd, they possessed many of the elementsof character that are esteemed noble, and, had they been left tothemselves, they might have progressed--so people who have studied intotheir character now believe--into a fairly advanced stage of what isknown as barbaric civilization. 

They lived in long, low houses of bark and boughs, each house largeenough to accommodate, perhaps, from eighty to a hundred persons--twentyfamilies to a house. These "long houses" were, therefore, much the samein purpose as are the tenement-houses of to-day, save that the tenementsof that far-off time were all on the same floor and were open closetsor stalls, about eight feet wide, furnished with bunks built againstthe wall and spread with deer-skin robes for comfort and covering. These "flats" or stalls were arranged on either side of a broad, centralpassage-way, and in this passage-way, at equal distances apart, firepits were constructed, the heat from which would warm the bodies andcook the dinners of the occupants of the "long house, " each fire servingthe purpose of four tenements or families. 

In their mode of life these people--tall, well-made, attractive, andcoppery-colored folk--were what is now termed communists, that is, theylived from common stores and had all an equal share in the land andits yield--the products of their vegetable gardens, their hunting andfishing expeditions, their home labors, and their household goods. 

Their method of government was entirely democratic. No one, in anyhousehold, was better off or of higher rank than his brothers orsisters. Their chiefs were simply men (and sometimes women) who had beenraised to leadership by the desire and vote of their associates, but whopossessed no special authority or power, except such as was allowedthem by the general consent of their comrades, in view of their wisdom, bravery, or ability. They lived, in fact, as one great family boundin close association by their habits of life and their familyrelationships, and they knew no such unnatural distinction as king orsubject, lord or vassal. 

Around their long bark tenements, stretched carefully cultivated fieldsof corn and pumpkins, the trailing bean, the full-bunched grapevine, thejuicy melon, and the big-leafed tabah, or tobacco. 

The field work was performed by the women, not from any necessity of aslavish condition or an enforced obedience, but because, where the menand boys must be warriors and hunters, the women and girls felt that itwas their place and their duty to perform such menial labor as, to theirunenlightened nature, seemed hardly suitable to those who were to becomechiefs and heroes. 

These sturdy forest-folk of old Virginia, who had reached that state ofhuman advance, midway between savagery and civilization, that is knownas barbarism, were but a small portion of that red-skinned, vigorous, and most interesting race familiar to us under their general butwrongly-used name of "Indians. " They belonged to one of the largestdivisions of this barbaric race, known the Algonquin family--adivision created solely by a similarity of language and ofblood-relationships--and were, therefore, of the kindred of the Indiansof Canada, of New England, and of Pennsylvania, of the valley of theOhio, the island of Manhattan, and of some of the far-away lands beyondthe Mississippi. 

So, for generations, they lived, with their simple home customs andtheir family affections, with their games and sports, their legends andtheir songs, their dances, fasts, and feasts, their hunting and theirfishing, their tribal feuds and wars. They had but little religiousbelief, save that founded upon the superstition that lies at thefoundation of all uncivilized intelligence, and though their customsshow a certain strain of cruelty in their nature, this was not a savageand vindictive cruelty, but was, rather, the result of what was, fromtheir way of looking at things, an entirely justifiable understanding oforder and of law. 

At the time of our story, certain of these Algonquin tribes of Virginiawere joined together in a sort of Indian republic, composed of thirtytribes scattered through Central and Eastern Virginia, and known totheir neighbors as the Confederacy of the Pow-ha-tans. This namewas taken from the tribe that was at once the strongest and the mostenergetic one in this tribal union, and that had its fields and villagesalong the broad river known to the Indians as the Pow-ha-tan, and to usas the James. 

The principal chief of the Pow-ha-tans was Wa-bun-so-na-cook, called bythe white men Pow-hatan. He was a strongly built but rather stern-facedold gentleman of about sixty, and possessed such an influence over histribesmen that he was regarded as the head man (president, we mightsay), of their forest republic, which comprised the thirty confederatedtribes of Pow-ha-tan. The confederacy, in its strongest days, nevernumbered more than eight or nine thousand people, and yet it wasconsidered one of the largest Indian unions in America. This, therefore, may be considered as pretty good proof that there was never, after all, a very extensive Indian population in America, even before the white mandiscovered it. 

Into one of the Pow-ha-tan villages that stood very near the shores ofChesapeake Bay, and almost opposite the now historic site of Yorktown, came one biting day, in the winter of 1607, an Indian runner, whose namewas Ra-bun-ta. He came as one that had important news to tell, but hepaused not for shout or question from the inquisitive boys who weretumbling about in the light snow, in their favorite sport of Ga-wa-sa orthe "snow-snake" game. One of the boys, a mischievous and sturdy youngIndian of thirteen, whose name was. Nan-ta-qua-us, even tried to insertthe slender knob-headed stick, which was the "snake" in the game, between the runner's legs, and trip him up. But Ra-bun-ta was tooskilful a runner to be stopped by trifles; he simply kicked the "snake"out of his way, and hurried on to the long house of the chief. 

Now this Indian settlement into which the runner had come was thePow-ha-tan village of Wero-woco-moco, and was the one in which the oldchief Wa-bun-so-na-cook usually resided. Here was the long council-housein which the chieftains of the various tribes in the confederacy met forcounsel and for action, and here, too, was the "long tenement-house" inwhich the old chief and his immediate family lived. 

It was into this dwelling that the runner dashed. In a group about thecentral fire-pit he saw the chief. Even before he could himself stop hisheadlong speed, however, his race with news came to an unexpected end. The five fires were all surrounded by lolling Indians, for the weatherin that winter of 1607 was terribly cold, and an Indian, when inside hishouse, always likes to get as near to the fire as possible. But down thelong passage-way the children were noisily playing at their games--atgus-ka-eh, or "peach-pits, " at gus-ga-e-sa-ta, or "deer-buttons, " andsome of the younger boys were turning wonderful somersaults up and downthe open spaces between the fire-pits. Just as the runner, Ra-bun-ta, sped up the passage-way, one of these youthful gymnasts with a dizzysuccession of hand-springs came whizzing down the passage-way right inthe path of Ra-bun-ta. 

There was a sudden collision. The tumbler's stout little feet came plumpagainst the breast of Ra-bun-ta, and so sudden and unexpected was theshock that both recoiled, and runner and gymnast alike tumbled over in awrithing heap upon the very edge of one of the big bonfires, Then therewas a great shout of laughter, for the Indians dearly loved a joke, andsuch a rough piece of unintentional pleasantry was especially relished. 

"Wa, wa, Ra-bun-ta, " they shouted, pointing at the discomfited runner ashe picked himself out of the fire, "knocked over by a girl!"

And the deep voice of the old chief said half sternly, half tenderly:

"My daughter, you have wellnigh killed our brother Ra-bun-ta withyour foolery. That is scarce girls' play. Why will you be such apo-ca-hun-tas?"(1)

(1) Po-ca-hun-tas, Algonquin for a little "tomboy. "

The runner joined in the laugh against him quite as merrily as did therest, and made a dash at the little ten-year-old tumbler, which she asnimbly evaded, "Ma-ma-no-to-wic, "(1) he said, "the feet of Ma-ta-okaare even heavier than the snake of Nun-ta-quaus, her brother. I have butescaped them both with my life. Ma-ma-no-to-wic, I have news foryou. The braves, with your brother O-pe-chan-ca-nough, have taken thepale-face chief in the Chickahominy swamps and are bringing him to thecouncil-house. "

(1) "Great man" or "strong one, " a title by which Wa-bun-so-na-cook, orPowhatan, was frequently addressed. 

"Wa, " said the old chief, "it is well, we will be ready for him. "

At once Ra-bun-ta was surrounded and plied with questions. The earlierAmerican Indians were always a very inquisitive folk, and were greatgossips. Ra-bun-ta's news would furnish fire-pit talk for months, sothey must know all the particulars. What was this white cau-co-rouse, (captain or leader) like? What had he on? Did he use his magic againstthe braves? Were any of them killed?

For the fame of "the white cau-co-rouse, " the "great captain, " asthe Indians called the courageous and intrepid little governor of theVirginia colony, Captain John Smith, had already gone throughout theconfederacy, and his capture was even better than a victory over theirdeadliest enemies, the Manna-ho-acks. 

Ra-bun-ta was as good a gossip and story-teller as any of his tribesmen, and as he squatted before the upper fire-pit, and ate a hearty mealof parched corn, which the little Ma-ta-oka brought him as apeace-offering, he gave the details of the celebrated capture. "The'great captain, '" he said, "and two of his men had been surprised inthe Chicka-hominy swamps by the chief O-pe-chan-ca-nough and two hundredbraves. The two men were killed by the chief, but the 'captain, ' seeinghimself thus entrapped, seized his Indian guide and fastened him beforeas a shield, and thus sent out so much of his magic thunder from hisfire-tube that he killed or wounded many of the Indians, and yet kepthimself from harm though his clothes were torn with arrow-shots. Atlast, however, " said the runner, "the 'captain' had slipped into amud-hole in the swamps, and, being there surrounded, was dragged out andmade captive, and he, Ra-bun-ta, had been sent on to tell the great newsto the chief. "

The Indians especially admired bravery and cunning. This device ofthe white chieftain and his valor when attacked appealed to theiradmiration, and there was great desire to see him when next day he wasbrought into the village by the chief of the Pa-mun-kee, or York RiverIndians, O-pe-chan-ca-nough, brother of the chief of the Pow-ha-tans. 

The renowned prisoner was received with the customary chorus of Indianyells, and then, acting upon the one leading Indian custom, the law ofunlimited hospitality, a bountiful feast was set before the captive, who, like the valiant man he was, ate heartily though ignorant what hisfate might be. 

The Indians seldom wantonly killed their captives. When a sufficientnumber had been sacrificed to avenge the memory of such braves as hadfallen in fight, the remaining captives were either adopted as tribesmenor disposed of as slaves. 

So valiant a warrior as this pale-faced cau-co-rouse was too importanta personage to be used as a slave, and Wa-bun-so-na-cook, the chief, received him as an honored guest(1) rather than as a prisoner, kept himin his own house for two days, and adopting him as his own son, promisedhim a large gift of land. Then, with many expressions of friendship, hereturned him, well escorted by Indian guides, to the trail that led backdirect to the English colony at Jamestown. 

(1) "Hee kindly welcomed me with good wordes, " says Smith's ownnarrative, "assuring me his friendship and my libertie. "

This rather destroys the long-familiar romance of the doughty captain'slife being saved by "the king's own daughter, " but it seems to be theonly true version of the story, based upon his own original report. 

But though the oft-described "rescue" did not take place, the valiantEnglishman's attention was speedily drawn to the agile little Indiangirl, Ma-ta-oka, whom her father called his "tomboy, " or po-ca-hun-tas. 

She was as inquisitive as any young girl, savage or civilized, and shewas so full of kindly attentions to the captain, and bestowed on him somany smiles and looks of wondering curiosity, that Smith made much ofher in return, gave her some trifling presents and asked her name. 

Now it was one of the many singular customs of the American Indiansnever to tell their own names, nor even to allow them to be spoken tostrangers by any of their own immediate kindred. The reason for this layin the superstition which held that the speaking of one's real name gaveto the stranger to whom it was spoken a magical and harmful influenceover such person. For the Indian religion was full of what is called thesupernatural. 

So, when the old chief of the Pow-ha-tans (who, for this very reason, was known to the colonists by the name of his tribe, Pow-ha-tan, rather than by his real name of Wa-bun-so-na-cook) was asked his littledaughter's name, he hesitated, and then gave in reply the nick-name bywhich he often called her, Po-ca-hun-tas, the "little tomboy"--for thisagile young maiden, by reason of her relationship to the head chief, was allowed much more freedom and fun than was usually the lot of Indiangirls, who were, as a rule, the patient and uncomplaining little drudgesof every Indian home and village. 

So, when Captain Smith left Wero-woco-moco, he left one firm friendbehind him, --the pretty little Indian girl, Ma-ta-oka, --who longremembered the white man and his presents, and determined, after herown wilful fashion, to go into the white man's village and see all theirwonders for herself. 

In less than a year she saw the captain again, For when, in the fallof 1608, he came to her father's village to invite the old chief toJamestown to be crowned by the English as "king" of the Pow-ha-tans, this bright little girl of twelve gathered together the other littlegirls of the village, and, almost upon the very spot where, many yearsafter, Cornwallis was to surrender the armies of England to the "rebel"republic, she with her companions entertained the English captain with agay Indian dance full of noise and frolic. 

Soon after this second interview, Ma-ta-oka's wish to see the whiteman's village was gratified. For in that same autumn of 1608 she camewith Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown. She sought out the captain who was then"president" of the colony, and "entreated the libertie" of certain ofher tribesmen who had been "detained, "--in other words, treacherouslymade prisoners by the settlers because of some fear of an Indian plotagainst them. 

Smith was a shrewd enough man to know when to bluster and when to befriendly. He released the Indian captives at Ma-ta-oka's wish--wellknowing that the little girl had been duly "coached" by her wily oldfather, but feeling that even the friendship of a child may often be ofvalue to people in a strange land. 

The result of this visit to Jamestown was the frequent presence in thetown of the chieftain's daughter. She would come, sometimes, withher brother, Nan-ta-qua-us, sometimes with the runner, Ra-bun-ta, andsometimes with certain of her girl followers. For even little Indiangirls had their "dearest friends, " quite as much as have our ownclannish young school-girls of to-day. 

I am afraid, however, that this twelve-year-old, Ma-ta-oka, fullydeserved, even when she should have been on her good behavior among thewhite people, the nickname of "little tomboy" (po-ca-hun-tas) thather father had given her, --for we have the assurance of sedate MasterWilliam Strachey, secretary of the colony, that "the before rememberedPocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, ofthe age then of eleven or twelve years, did get the boyes forth withher into the market-place, and make them wheele, falling on their handturning their heeles upward, whome she would followe and wheele soherself, all the fort over. " From which it would appear that she couldeasily "stunt" the English boys at "making cart-wheels. "

But there came a time very soon when she came into Jamestown for otherpurpose than turning somersaults. 

The Indians soon learned to distrust the white men, because of theunfriendly and selfish dealings, of the new-comers, their tyranny, theirhaughty disregard of the Indians' wishes and desires, and their impudentmeddling alike with chieftains and with tribesmen. Discontent grewinto hatred and, led on by certain traitors in the colony, a plot wasarranged for the murder of Captain Smith and the destruction of thecolony. 

Three times they attempted to entrap and destroy the "great captain" andhis people, but each time the little Ma-ta-oka, full of friendship andpity for her new acquaintances, stole cautiously into the town, or foundsome means of misleading the conspirators, and thus warned her whitefriends of their danger. 

One dark winter night in January, 1609, Captain Smith, who had came toWero-woco-moco for conference and treaty with Wa-bun-so-na-cook (whomhe always called Pow-ha-tan), sat in the York River woods awaiting someprovisions that the chief had promised him, --for eatables were scarcethat winter in the Virginia colony. 

There was a light step beneath which the dry twiggs on the groundcrackled slightly, and the wary captain grasped his matchlock and badehis men be on their guard. Again the twigs crackled, and now there camefrom the shadow of the woods not a train of Indians, but one littlegirl--Ma-ta-oka, or Pocahontas. 

"Be guarded, my father, " she said, as Smith drew her to his side. "Thecorn and the good cheer will come as promised, but even now, my father, the chief of the Pow-ha-tans is gathering all his power to fall upon youand kill you. If you would live, get you away at once. "

The captain prepared to act upon her advice without delay, but he feltso grateful at this latest and most hazardous proof of the littleIndian girl's regard that he desired to manifest his thankfulness bypresents--the surest way to reach an Indian's heart. 

"My daughter, " he said kindly, "you have again saved my life, comingalone, and at risk of your own young life, through the irksome woods andin this gloomy night to admonish me. Take this, I pray you, from me, andlet it always tell you of the love of Captain Smith. "

And the grateful pioneer handed her his much-prized pocket compass--aninstrument regarded with awe by the Indians, and esteemed as one of theinstruments of the white man's magic. 

But Ma-ta-oka, although she longed to possess this wonderful"path-teller, " shook her head. 

"Not so, Cau-co-rouse, " she said, "if it should be seen by my tribesmen, or even by my father, the chief, I should but be as dead to them, forthey would know that I have warned you whom they have sworn to kill, andso would they kill me also. Stay not to parley, my father, but be goneat once. "

And with that, says the record, "she ran away by herself as she came. "

So the captain hurried back to Jamestown, and Ma-ta-oka returned to herpeople. 

Soon after Smith left the colony, sick and worn out by the continualworries and disputes with his fellow-colonists, and Ma-ta-oka felt that, in the absence of her best friend and the increasing troubles betweenher tribesmen and the pale-faces, it would be unwise for her to visitJamestown. 

Her fears seem to have been well grounded, for in the spring of1613, Ma-ta-oka, being then about sixteen, was treacherously and "bystratagem" kidnapped by the bold and unscrupulous Captain Argall--halfpirate, half trader, --and was held by the colonists as hostage for the"friendship" of Pow-ha-tan. 

Within these three years, however, she had been married to the chief ofone of the tributary tribes, Ko-ko-um by name, but, as was the Indianmarriage custom, Ko-ko-um had come to live among the kindred of hiswife, and had shortly after been killed in one of the numerous Indianfights. 

It was during the captivity of the young widow at Jamestown thatshe became acquainted with Master John Rolfe, an industrious youngEnglishman, and the man who, first of all the American colonists, attempted the cultivation of tobacco. 

Master Rolfe was a widower and an ardent desirer of "the conversion ofthe pagan salvages. " He became interested in the young Indian widow, andthough he protests that he married her for the purpose of convertingher to Christianity, and rather ungallantly calls her "an unbelievingcreature, " it is just possible that if she had not been a prettyand altogether captivating young unbeliever he would have found lesspersonal means for her conversion. 

Well, the Englishman and the Indian girl, as we all know, were married, lived happily together, and finally departed for England. Here, all toosoon, in 1617, when she was about twenty-one, the daughter of the greatchieftain of the Pow-ha-tans died. 

Her story is both a pleasant and a sad one. It needs none of theadditional romance that has been thrown about it to render it moreinteresting. An Indian girl, free as her native forests, made friendswith the race that, all unnecessarily, became hostile to her own. Brighter, perhaps, than most of the girls of her tribe, she recognizedand desired to avail herself of the refinements of civilization, and sogave up her barbaric surroundings, cast in her lot with the white race, and sought to make peace and friendship between neighbors take the placeof quarrel and of war. 

The white race has nothing to be proud of in its conquest of thepeople who once owned and occupied the vast area of the North Americancontinent. The story is neither an agreeable nor a chivalrous one. But out of the gloom which surrounds it, there come some figures thatrelieve the darkness, the treachery, and the crime that make it so sad. And not the least impressive of these is this bright and gentle littledaughter of Wa-bun-so-na-cook, chief of the Pow-ha-tans, Ma-ta-oka, friend of the white strangers, whom we of this later day know by thenickname her loving old father gave her--Po-ca-hun-tas, the Algonquin.