honor permission to wear the cloak which did you the 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.

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

"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 recollection; "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."

"They hear farther than you think of," said the Queen graciously, "and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in Shannon against a whole band of wild Irish 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 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; wear thy muddy cloak till our pleasure be farther

known. And 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 intuitively, as it were, those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it. He knew, perhaps better than almost any of the courtiers who surrounded her, how to mingle 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. SCOTT.

The magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity of his sympathy which commends his poetry to the universal heart. His artistic sense is so exquisite that each of his poems is a literary study. Longfellow's mind takes a simple, childlike hold of life. His delightful familiarity with the pure literature of all languages and times must rank him among the learned poets

A FATHER'S LETTER

You must study to be frank with the world. Frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do,

on every occasion, and take it for granted that you mean to do right. If a friend ask a favor, you should grant it, if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot; you would wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind.

Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; a man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.

If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only for the best as a matter of principle, but it is the path of peace and honor.

In regard to duty, let me, in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that nearly a hundred years ago there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness, still known as "the dark day," a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished as if by an eclipse.

The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day the day of judgment - had

come.

Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport, of Stamford, and said that, if the last day had come, he desired to be found at his place doing his duty, and therefore moved that candles be brought in, so that the House could proceed with its duty.

There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty. Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things like the old Puritan. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less. Never let your mother or me wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part. From Robert E. Lee to his son, G. W. Custis Lee.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(1809-1865)

THE LOVELY SHELL

See what a lovely shell,

Small and pure as a pearl,

Lying close to my foot,

Frail, but a work divine,

Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,

How exquisitely minute,

A miracle of design!

What is it? A learned man

Could give it a clumsy name.

Let him name it who can.

The beauty is still the same.

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the living will

That made it stir on the shore.

Did he stand at the diamond door

Of his house in a rainbow frill?

Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,

A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water world?

Slight, to be crushed with a tap
Of my finger on the sand!
Small, but a work divine! -

Frail, but of force to withstand,

Year upon year, the shock

Of cataract seas that snap
The three decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock
Here on the Briton strand!

- TENNYSON.

GLORIOUS OLD BANNER

Is it any wonder that the old soldier loves the flag under whose folds he fought and for which his comrades shed so much blood? He loves it for what it is and for what it represents. It embodies the purposes and history of the government itself. It records the achievements of its defenders upon land and sea.