"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. "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 is thy name and birth ?" "Raleigh is my name, most gracious Queen, the youngest son of a large but honorable family in 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 further than you think for," said the Queen, graciously, "and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in Shannon against a whole band of 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. But you must not escape your penance for turning back Masters-the poor man hath caught cold on the river-for our order reached him when he had just returned from certain visits to London, and he held it a matter of loyalty and conscience instantly to set forth again. So hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, in token of penitence, till our pleasure be further 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. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Biography.-For a biography of Sir Walter Scott, see page 209. Notes.- Deptford (Dět' furd) is a town on the south bank of the Thames, four miles below London Bridge. The Shannon is the largest river in Ireland. It rises near the base of a mountain near the County Cavan, and, after flowing about 224 miles, empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Language.-Select from the lesson an example of the different kinds of sentences-simple, compound and complex. Point out the subject and predicate in the simple sentence, and state what are the modifiers of each. If prepositional phrases occur, show the parts of which they are composed. What is meant by the expression, "The youth's head is turned with reading romances"? Composition. - The principal points in the biographical sketch of an author are:- 1. The place and date of birth, and (if dead) the place and date of death; 2. Early life, and date and name of first publication; 3. Important events in the after life of the author; 4. Peculiarities of style; 5. Principal works. 53.-SCENES IN THE YELLOWSTONE COUNTRY. me ǎn'ders, winds; flows. brěc'ciả (brět'chȧ), rocks made of fragments and showing a variety of colors. ab rupt'ly, suddenly. ae eū'mu lāt ed, gathered. ǎg'gre gåt ed, collected. ba salt'ie, formed of a rock eon çeive, think of. That portion of the Yellowstone River lying above Yellowstone Lake meanders through a region of the deepest interest. It flows through a marshy valley three miles wide. Five lesser streams flow into it from the mountains on either side of the head of the valley, and during the month of August the vegetation is fresh, green and abundant. The valley is walled in by dark somber rocks of volcanic origin, which have been weathered into many remarkable architectural forms. Looking up the valley from any high point, one can easily imagine that he is amid the ruins of some gigantic city, so much do these rocks appear like the remains of the old castles and cathedrals of every age and clime. If there be added to this, the singular vertical furrows which have been cut deep in the sides of the cliffs, their antiquated appearance is rendered all the more striking. At the base of the wall, like ridges along the valley, immense masses of volcanic breccia have fallen from the mountain tops, crushing the pines along their pathway. About fifteen miles above the lake, the valley terminates abruptly, the mountains rising like walls and shutting off the country beyond. The river here separates into three main branches, with a few smaller ones, which bring the aggregated waters of the melted snows from the summits of the lofty volcanic peaks above. Just at the head of the valley there is a small lake, not more than two hundred yards in width. Ascending the mountain from the head of the valley on the west, and from the summit of a high peak you behold the whole basin, with the lofty divide, in one enchanting view. As far as the eye can reach in any direction, bare, bald peaks, domes and ridges in almost countless numbers can be seen. At least a hundred peaks, each worthy of a name, can be located within the radius of vision. N Professor Hayden relates that he encamped one night near a small lake by the side of a huge bank of snow, 10,000 feet above the sea, with the short spring grass and flowers all around him. On these mountain summits there are but two seasons, spring and winter. In August the fresh new grass may be seen springing up where an immense bank of snow has but just disappeared. The little spring flowers, not more than one or two inches high, cover the ground. N No more wonderful or attractive region for the explorer can anywhere be found. He can make his way among grand gorges, penetrating every valley and ascending every mountain slope, with an abundance of grass, wood, water, and game, to supply the wants of both man and beast. From the foot of the lake the Yellowstone flows through a grassy, meadow-like valley, with a calm, steady current, giving no warning, until very near the falls, that it is about to rush over a precipice one hundred and forty feet deep, and then, within a quarter of a mile, again to leap down a distance of three hundred and fifty feet. Just above the Upper Falls are two beautiful cascades, twenty to thirty feet high. At the first or east one, the rocks so wall in the channel that it is scarcely more than a hundred feet wide, and the entire volume of water, which must form a mass thirty feet deep, rushes down a vertical descent of one hundred and forty feet. It is thus hurled from the precipice with the force which it has accumulated in the rapids above, so that the mass is broken into millions of beautiful snow-white, bead-like 'drops, and, as it strikes the rocky basin below, it shoots forward with a bounding motion for a distance of two hundred feet. In the distance, it presents the appearance of a mass of snow-white foam. On the sides of the basaltic walls there is a thick growth of vegetation, nourished by the spray above, and extending up as far as the moisture can reach. Language is inadequate to describe the wonderful grandeur and beauty of the cañon below the Lower Falls. The nearly vertical walls, slightly sloping to the water's edge on either side, give to the river the appearance, from the summit, of a thread of silver, foaming over its rocky bottom. The variegated colors of the sides-yellow, red, brown, and white-all intermixed and shading into each other; the Gothic columns of every form, standing out out from the sides of the walls with greater variety and more striking colors than |