still hung upon his arm and formed the natural topic with which the Queen introduced the conversation.

"You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our service, though the manner of offering it was unusual, and 5 something bold."

"In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, "it is each liegeman's duty to be bold."

"That was well said, my lord," said the Queen, turning to a grave person who sat by her and answered with a grave 10 inclination of the head and something of a mumbled assent. "Well, young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the newest cut, I 15 promise thee, on the word of a princess."

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'May it please Your Grace," said Walter, hesitating, "it is not for so humble a servant of Your Majesty to measure out your bounties; but if it became me to choose-"

"Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me," said the 20 Queen, interrupting him; "fie, young man! To give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. Yet thou mayst be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be. It shall be gold, if thou wilt, but thou shalt answer to me for the use on 't." Walter waited patiently until the Queen had done, and then modestly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the raiment Her Majesty had before offered.

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How, boy!" said the Queen; "neither gold nor garment? What is it thou wouldst have of me, then?"

"Only permission, madam-if it is not asking too high an honor-permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling service."

"Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy?" said the Queen.

"It is no longer mine," said Walter; "when Your Majesty's foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too rich a one for its former owner."

The Queen again blushed, and endeavored to cover, by laughing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion.

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"Heard you ever the like, my lords? The youth's head is turned with reading romances I must know 15 something of him, that I may send him safe to his friends. What art thou? What is thy name and birth?"

"Raleigh is my name, most gracious Queen, the youngest son of a large but honorable family of Devonshire." "Raleigh," said Elizabeth after a moment's reflection; "have we not heard of your service in Ireland?”

"I have been so fortunate as to do some service there, madam," replied Raleigh; "scarce, however, of consequence sufficient to reach Your Grace's ears."

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They hear farther than you think of," said the Queen graciously; " and have heard of a youth who defended a

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ford against a whole band of wild rebels until the stream ran purple with their blood and his own."

"Some blood I may have lost," said the youth, looking down; "but it was where my best is due; and that is in 5 Your Majesty's service."

The Queen paused, and then said hastily, "You are very young to have fought so well and to speak so well. Hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak till our pleasure be further known. And 10 here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold in the form of a chessman, "I give thee this to wear at the collar."

Raleigh, to whom nature had taught courtly arts, knelt, and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it. He knew, perhaps, better than almost any 15 of the courtiers who surrounded her, how to mix the devotion claimed by the Queen with the gallantry due to her personal beauty; and in this, his first attempt to unite them, he succeeded so well as at once to gratify Elizabeth's personal vanity and her love of power.1

Abridged.

dog's wages: a beating or rough treatment of any kind. - wot: know. kerns: peasant foot soldiers, a term often used in contempt. — pensioners: gentlemen who attended the sovereign on state occasions and received a small pension in recompense. - aft: toward the stern of a boat.

1 The gallant incident of the cloak is the traditional account of this celebrated statesman's rise at court. None of Elizabeth's courtiers knew better than he how to make his court to her personal vanity, or could more justly estimate the quantity of flattery which she could condescend to swallow. (Scott.)

TRUTHFULNESS

GEORGE ELIOT

GEORGE ELIOT was the assumed name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, who was born in 1819 and died in 1880. She was a gifted writer, and her books are remarkable as studies of human character. Those which are liked best by young people are "Silas Marner" and "The Mill on the Floss."

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It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in many Dutch paintings which lofty-minded people despise. I find a source of delicious sympathy in those faithful pictures of a monotonous homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my fellow- 10 mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic suffering or of world-stirring actions.

I turn without shrinking, from cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an old woman bending over her flowerpot, or eating her solitary dinner, 15 while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls on her mobcap and just touches the rim of her spinning wheel, and her stone jug, and all those cheap, common things which are the precious necessaries of life to her; or I turn to that village wedding, kept between 20 four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, but with an expression of

unmistakable contentment and good will.

my idealistic friend, "what vulgar details!

"Foh!" says

What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact likeness of old women and clowns? What a low phase of life! 5 what clumsy, ugly people!"

But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope. I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have not been ugly, and even among those "lords of their kind," the British, squat 10 figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not startling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst us.

I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the Apollo curl on their brows would be decidedly 15 trying; yet, to my certain knowledge, tender hearts have beaten for them, and their miniatures-flattering, but still not lovely are kissed in secret by motherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron who could never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet 20 of yellow love letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered kisses on her sallow cheeks.

And I believe there have been plenty of young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a 25 Diana, and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who waddles. Yes! thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth;