'I do not give it,' said she.

Nay, I take it,' he returned, and slipped it into his breast. Mine own fair lady-alas! so little mine-shifted in her place, the better to face me.

'Your Prince woos not so ill,' said she beneath her breath, 'did he but woo for himself.'

'But' said I, and sat aghast.

'Prince Charles wore my colours yesterday in his petite oie,' said Mademoiselle. I know no English word for the foolish frippery which betokens that a man weareth his lady's colours in sword-knot, gloves, and plume, and in fine wherever he make place for the same. 'Sure, that should suffice him,' she ended.

'Nay, for he desires to wear your colours ever,' returned his Highness.

'You shall not find his constancy tedious,' said his Highness, and for my life I could not say whether he meant or she understood the mockage of his words.

But Mademoiselle had another change of mood.

'Is England so fair?' she asked, leaning on the balustrade and looking far out across the trim garden walks, where statues postured beside the fantastical fountains and all things were as newly dressed for a Court masque.

I know not fully what the Prince answered, whether because he spoke more soft or for that mine own thoughts sounded in mine ears I know not. For with the careless question came England's self before me, and I saw the beech-woods purple with coming spring against the shining slope of the Chiltern Hills, all under a sky of grey tenderer than blue. And the old house whereto my fathers, each in his time, had brought home their brides, but to which I should never bring the lady whom I loved. For a heart-beat loyalty's self seemed to weigh but lightly against all which it cost. 'So very fair then,' said the low voice beside me. But you will return, Monsieur Gerard, you and your Prince.' I had ceased to wonder at her fashion of answering my very thought.

The Prince's words came to me as from a far distance.

'A man might be content to die so he could lay his bones in England.'

'But France is my country,' Mademoiselle made objection. 'A queen's country is where she reigns queen,' said Prince Rupert, with his eyes upon her.

She shrugged up her shoulders in answer,

There are more thrones than one in Europe. Mayhap it were wiser to choose one more stable.'

"Tis of the Emperor she thinks, whom she has been so fain to wed,' whispered my companion, half-hid behind her great fan.

'Is not this English throne hard to mount?' asked Made. moiselle again as the Prince answered her not. 'Were it not wiser to seek some other?'

'Surely wiser,' his Highness made composed answer, 'for whoso desires to walk only on rose leaves and jasmine as did yon fair ladies at the Hôtel Rambouillet. I had thought a woman might have a heart for gallant adventure even as a man, and choose rather to share the hazard than to wait till all is made safe for her coming.' Mademoiselle turned herself about and looked on him with great eyes.

'Madame the Queen of England tells me that the hazard is little and the issue certain victory, and that ere long.'

Prince Rupert flung back his head after a fashion we his soldiers knew.

'And I say that the hazard is great and the victory may be slow to come,' he cried. Yet I, too, say the issue is certain. For loyalty is with us, and it cannot fail in the end, nor have our comrades died for naught. We shall return

'But if it be to lose again?' asked Mademoiselle, and this time she spoke in no mockery, but as one who seeks the truth.

The Prince looked down on her and smiled.

'Never charge was led in that spirit,' said he. 'Mademoiselle, come charge with us. Your alliance shall help us win the day.'

It was the strangest-fashioned wooing ever I heard on, yet meseemed for the moment it was not ill devised. For Mademoiselle's cheeks were bright as the rose-red ribands at her breast, and her eyes were alight and eager.

6

The Prince of Wales should speak thus,' she cried out.

'Were it easy for him so to speak?' asked his Highness, 'I that am his solidier and the King his father's, I can say it boldly. But for a man to bring only present need and the prospect of strife and peril where he would fain offer a rich inheritance'

Methought as he spoke he put mine own thoughts into words. Scarce knowing what I did I turned mine eyes on Françoise de Rohan, and,

'God knows that is true!' I said.

But you can say boldly-what, my cousin?' asked Mademoiselle, in her clear voice.

'That the hazard and the venture be the best part of living,' answered Prince Rupert swift and firm, that in straits a man learneth of true comradeship and loyalty; ay, and that without peril and hardship there is no proving of manhood-no, nor of womanhood neither, ma cousine. What, would you liefer pace your life away in a dance, or trifle it by in word fencing, than play your part in a so gallant game as the winning back of a kingdom? When it is won, Mademoiselle, many a princess will be eager to share the throne, but now

'Were I to wed your cousin and mine it should be ere he had conquered,' cried Mademoiselle, all in a heat.

'Why, so I judged of you,' he replied. And methinks it were worthier to wed a prince who had proven his valour and leadership on the field, for whom men are glad to die, than to share the peaceful dotage of an emperor.'

'Alas! has your Prince Charles so proven himself yet?' said Françoise. His Highness had best have a care or Hush Mademoiselle speaks.'

Mademoiselle was speaking indeed, with her eyes on the dancing

fountain.

'Love is too slight a thing to rule great minds,' said she, 'but to desire heroical qualities is no weakness, nay, but a noble ambition of the noblest.'

I thought the speech came pat out of a play book, and so mayhap did his Highness, for he answered not to it. Mademoiselle looked sidewise on him and Françoise de Rohan laid hand on my arm.

They are a princely pair,' said she.

Truly she did not judge amiss, for as they stood together betwixt palace and garden, Mademoiselle tall and shining-fair, his Highness taller yet, with his eagle look of leadership, they seemed verily well mated.

'Your Prince Charles is but a lad,' began Mademoiselle at length. 'Will he bear himself so valorously, and who shall assure it me?'

'That will I,' his Highness made prompt answer. When he is free of this dalliance and leads his Cavaliers into battle, he will be worthy the crown he fights for. Thereto I pledge you a word never broken.'

'Then,' said Mademoiselle, as who so considers, 'you would have me cast all on a hazard, and like some heroine of great romance choose my hero for his valour and his fame? Methinks I have the high heart that could do it, if '-here she made a long pause"if the hero came a-wooing for himself.'

"Ah!' breathed Françoise beside me.

I could not read his Highness's face as he made reply.

'He shall say to you, then, "You have a queenly dowry and state, and I have but my name and my hopes

'And great deeds and fame,' put in Mademoiselle, and looked him in the eyes, 'for sake of which a woman brave enough might forgo the easier triumph of a crown.'

The Prince stood silent and eyed her strangely.

'They say, mon prince, that none ever resisted your charge,' said la Grande Mademoiselle, very sudden.

'Yet I am here,' he returned, bitterly enough.

If that be true,' she went on, nothing heeding, 'why not charge, mon cousin?

'It is my hope, when I follow Charles to England,' he answered, with an unmoved countenance. For the rest, fairest my cousin, he shall himself press his suit as you have taught me.' He bent and kissed her hand, while she looked from him across the fountain.

'He must find me in the like caprice, then,' she said, ' for so only could I play at romance,' and so moved away along the terrace. "Your Prince is dull,' said Françoise, but as I turned I saw her eyes full of tears.

'Not so,' I answered, but he could not in honour have said for himself what he might well plead for Prince Charles.'

'Had he spoken for himself?' she murmured.

"For himself!' I cried. Even were he not bound to the Prince for whom he wooed-shall a man say: I have but my sword and my honour, having given all else for my King; make good my losses and thereto yield me thyself? Nay, had he loved--because he loved' I broke off, for Rupert was a great prince, despite all losses, whereas I

But my lady took up Mademoiselle's words:

'A woman brave enough might-might answer Yes.'

Françoise!' I cried, and she raised her eyes to mine--and then her lips.

Round the turn of the walk came Prince Rupert, striding fast, and at sight of us his eyebrows went up.

'How now, Gerard,' said he in English, whereas he had saluted

the lady, 'come you hither a-wooing?"

'Nay,' said I, 'that was done by your Highness.'

DORA GREENWELL MCCHESNEY.

LEWIS CAMPBELL.

THE poet-scholar is the most valuable interpreter of the great classical poems to the public outside the ring of high scholarship. He is, perhaps, depreciated by the other kind of scholar, the man of exact science in words, for the very reason that he is a poet. This, no doubt, is one reason why a scholar with so fine a sense of his subject as Lewis Campbell met with a smaller measure of scholarly appreciation in this country than he might well have expected.

The poet-scholar is accused of vagueness and rhetorical expression; whereas his own consciousness tells him that the poet's language is a thing plastic, fluid, Protean, flung out, as it were, to envelope a soaring idea and bring it to earth. In dramatic poetry especially his knowledge of other dramatists will tell him that a word or phrase often plays its part in heightening the general effect, like an additional figure in a stage crowd, hovering, may be, between two meanings, and conveying something of the colour of both, and losing something if tied down solely to either. As against the man who can

Properly base Oun,

Give us the doctrine of the enclitic De,

the poet-scholar lays stress on the spirit and thought of his text. His ideal of translation would transfer the full feeling of his author with a corresponding richness of colour to the inevitably different medium of another language, deliberately paring away linguistic details which are alien to the genius of that new medium. He cannot do without the man of ovv and dé any more than the architect can do without the mason, but his most real interest and his dearest study are in the lines of spiritual and literary architecture.

The dangers of such an ideal are obvious; the student's difficulties over an obscure passage or a grammatical 'crux' may seem to be lightly skated over, and the poetic interpreter who is vividly conscious of this way of the poets is mercilessly condemned as inexact' by the disciples of yerbal accuracy at all costs, the