the verge of decorum, and it is a test of modesty not to be led astray by her caprices, nor to be over censorion: in condemning. Helena. Ah! the little bonnets! Miss O. I was going to make resolutions against go sipping about personal details, and yet I must say of thing which makes me regret them. St. Paul's rule the the angels, seems to point out, that to be meekly covered a woman's head should be covered in Church because of at least with the features not openly displayed, is the de corous token of humility in the Christian woman at prayer protecting her from either gazing, or being gazed up And as following fashion in over expense, ornament display, and spending too much time on our bodies, is one great evil, so the opposite corruptibl one is slovenli ness, and heedlessness of details of cleanliness out d sight. Audrey. That is horrible. Miss O. The old saying, 'cleanliness is next to godi ness,' is not far from truth, especially where poverty makes it a real struggle of each day. There it becomes a virtue of no small price, and it is closely connected with delicacy and modesty. Untidiness, and the whole sp of this will do,' is generally related either to wild rude ness, or else with over love of ease and indulgence. The truly pure and delicate mind has an instinct against t soiled, the torn, the displaced, the carelessly arranged, the false display, as if the dirty, unseemly, and untidy a veyed a sort of idea of sin and uncleanness, and the pare and undefiled went with holiness and modesty.* the con Helena. I thought untidiness was nothing but burg or indolence. Miss O. What are these but self-indulgence, the chief * See an excellent paper on Cleanliness, p. 273, of the Magalise for the Young,' for 1848. enemy to the keeping our body 'in temperance, soberness, and chastity.' It is watchfulness, and quiet sense of the becoming, that, without lessening happy frankness and sincerity, enables a woman to walk through the world pure, holy, undefiled in heart or in imagination, aware only of evil to alleviate it by her prayers or by her charity, and never without her one ornament, becoming her in all stations or states of life. Mary. The meek and quiet spirit, the hidden man of the heart.' Miss O. Devotion to Christ her Lord. So, if her lot be to be a wife, she looks to Heaven above all, and is as the Church, waiting on her Lord, and bringing her children unto glory. Or if her portion be otherwise, Christianity has taken away the reproach that a single life once conveyed. Nay, she has St. Paul's judgment that 'she is happier if she so abide,' and though the world looks on the single woman only as one disappointed of her companion, it is her own fault if she sink into deserving this view of her case. No, she would value the guidance of Providence, which has left her disentangled from the closer ties of earth, free to look more directly to Christ, to care for the things of the Lord,' and fulfil His more immediate work. In either position she may fulfil the original purpose for which she was created-the being a help-meet for man; and it is one especial part of her mission that the simple dignity of her purity and modesty that which is respected by all but the most depraved should hold up in the world a witness of that absence from all defilement, which is required by the Allholy God. (To be continued.) VOL, 14. 16 PART 81. ROYAL ROSE-BUDS. CHAPTER VIII. HENRY OF THE RHINE. 'What if some little pain the passage have Is not short pain well borne, that brings long ease?' Spenser ELIZABETH, the fair and accomplished daughter of James the First of England, was born to a very strange and eventful life. She was a native of Scotland, and first saw the light at the Palace of Falkland, in 1596. When she was seven years old, her father inherited the Englis crown from our far-famed Queen Elizabeth. He imme diately hastened to London, and was proclaimed king, and in due time his queen and children followed him to the south. Elizabeth was the second of a family of seven, only two of whom lived to grow up. Several little sisters Idied in childhood, among them the baby Sophia, the 'Royal Rose-bud,' whose graceful epitaph I have already told you of. A still heavier blow fell upon the king and queen 1612, when Henry, Prince of Wales, their idol and the delight of the nation, fell sick and died. His character belongs to the pages of history; we shall, therefore, only allude to him as he influenced the fate of his sister Elin beth. Their mother, Anne of Denmark, weak and wise beyond his years, and deeply attached to worldly-minded woman, was very anxious that Elizabeth should make a great marriage, and urged King James to form an alliance for her among the crowned heads of Europe. Prince Henry, though scarcely eighteen, was of England; he feared the Romanist influences, which st to give Elizabeth's hand to any monarch who professed that time were strong, and earnestly begged his father not the Church T allegiance to the Pope. At his request, a Lutheran prince from Germany, Frederic, Elector Palatine, was permitted to come to England, and urge his suit. The ambitious queen yielded to the wish of her darling son, and consented to the marriage, but with so bad a grace that she used to taunt her daughter, and address her by the homely titles of. Good wife,' or Mistress Palgrave.' Henry's untimely death delayed the marriage some weeks, but it took place early in 1613, and the Electress followed her husband to his dominions. They consisted of the Upper and Lower Palatinate, two rich and fair provinces lying on either bank of the Rhine, and stretching to Bohemia and Bavaria. The home of the young couple was the princely castle of Heidelburg, a spot of singular beauty, still visited year after year by thousands of travellers. It towers high above the town of the same name, and is approached from it by a steep narrow old-fashioned street. You cross an ancient draw-bridge and a wide outer court, and find yourself on a broad paved' terrace; here the hum of the busy town comes pleasantly up to your ear, and beneath your feet rolls the river Neckar, backed by a range of green and vine-clad hills. palace itself is, on this side, a rambling mass of building, adorned with gables, pinnacles, traceried windows, and crumbling statues of the old Electors. Hanging gardens, over-grown and wild, but still beautiful in their decay, cover the steep slope from the castle to the river. They were the creation of Elizabeth in her young happy days. The Here the Electress might have lived in peace and honour, for her husband was fondly attached to her, and in course of time they were blest with several fair children. But one unhappy failing of Elizabeth's marred their peace. Though in the main a truly good woman, she, like her mother, was ambitious; that is, she coveted a higher station than that which God had placed her in. Not content with the name which her grace and sweetness had won for her, of Queen of Hearts,' she used to that the wish of her heart was to be indeed a quees. The temptation to gratify this wish soon came in her way. In 1619, the people of Bohemia, having risen in arms against Ferdinand the Second, newly-elected Emperor of Germany, sent an offer of their vacant throne to the Palgrave Frederic. He wisely resolved to decline it, and was strengthened in this decision by the advice of his father-in-law, who set all the difficulties and risks of the undertaking before him. But, alas! Elizabeth could not resist the glittering bait; she argued, she wept, she entreated, and in an evil hour she gained her point. Tw years of strife and bloodshed followed Frederic's accept He was no match for the great and mighty House of Austria, and in the famous battle of Prague, it crushed him to the earth. He not only lost Bohemia, but the Palatinate also, and was forced to g forth a wanderer and almost a beggar, to seek refuge i some foreign court. The Prince of Orange offered him home at the Hague, and there he took up his abode with ance of the throne. his family in 1621. her misfortunes. 1 self by the most touching patience and cheerfulness under If Elizabeth had erred in prosperity, she redeemed berShe and Frederic devoted themselves to training up their children, and took especial pains with their eldest boy, Henry, a most promising youth, in many respects like his uncle and namesake, the lamented Prince of Wales. He was early sent to school, first at Utrecht then at Leyden, where his progress under a learned He loved teacher named Vossius was very surprising. both quick learning for its own sake, and though he was and industrious, and received high praise from his tutors. he remained entirely free from conceit. 'For all I did, I did but as I ought,' might have been his motto. When only eight, he spoke |