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lease. It is easy to understand what a sad impression all this must have made on the sensitive mind of the young girl and why it was needful that the family life should be both quiet and natural. To give her a chance of expanding, to strengthen the health of her second brother, and also in the hope of benefiting the little invalid, the mother caused a farm to be laid out in their country seat, in which the children themselves tilled the ground, milked the cows, tended the poultry, sowed and cut the grain, in short, did with their own hands all rural labors. This regime was especially healthful to Elizabeth, who was by nature a fantastic child, inclined to weave romances and live in dreamland. It brought her into contact with the real earth, and she learned to know and love nature. Seeing her imaginative leanings, her wise mother had carefully withheld from her works of imagination and poetry, desiring to strengthen her intellect with sterner studies. But she could not prevent the child from secretly inditing verses at a tender age, nor did she remain wholly ignorant of works of fiction. A copy, somehow obtained, of "The Wide, Wide World" was long her favorite reading, and was often found hidden between the covers of some schoolbook, or under her pillow at night. To succor those in distress, to aid the poor and nurse the sick, was early taught her by precept and example; and with her ardent temperament, which is apt to exaggerate everything, there seemed at one time some danger that she would not have a dress to her back, so liberally did she dispose or her wardrobe to all who asked. Meanwhile, to roam the woods that surrounded the country seat of the family, if possible alone, accompanied only by her big dogs, so that she might dream her dreams undisturbed, remained the chief pleasure of the little girl. Day by day her German home grew dearer to her, and even among the more stately Carpathians she has not forgotten the vine-clad hills of the Rhine. She, too, has given her poetical tribute to that much-sung river, and in introducing her translations of Roumanian folksongs to her native land she invokes the Rhine in terms of endearment.
     This open-air life, this rustic, simple training, united to a refined intelligence and careful mental nurture, has produced an original and charming result. To this day the Queen retains some of the unsophisticated directness of the tiller of the soil, while there is an aroma of the woods and fields in her poetry and her speech. As a mere child her instincts were toward independence and freedom, and to this day conventionality irks her. Many are the tales told of her wild exploits while in her Rhenish home. One day, when she was but ten, she was seized with a sudden desire to attend the village school. When her mother, as her custom was, came into the children's room in the early morning, Princess Elizabeth begged for leave to go and learn her lessons with the neighbors' children. The Princess of Wied either did not hear, or did not regard the demand as made in earnest, and the little girl, interpreting her silence as consent, slipped away and entered the school, where all knew her well by sight. The master was pleased, but scarcely surprised; he knew the simple habits of the Wied family, and so he continued his labors, regardless of the new scholar. They were in the midst of a singing lesson and the Princess joined in with all the ardor of her nature and the strength of her youthful lungs. Singing was a delight to her, all the more that at home, among so many invalids, she had to check her exuberant utterances. But, to the no small dismay of the whole class, a little girl standing next her, annoyed at, perchance jealous of, this full-voiced song, unable to sing her down, put her hand over the Princess's mouth to silence her. While she was in this ignominious position, there arrived a liveried servant from the castle, sent in pursuit of the fugitive, whom he bore off humiliated, and who was condemned to several days' captivity in consequence of this escapade.
     Journeys to the Isle of Wight, to various German towns, and even to Paris, for the purpose of seeking change of air, and surgical aid for the invalid brother, had broken the monotony of the Princess's life; but not until she was seventeen did she make acquaintance with the great world. She then paid a visit of several months to the court of Berlin. Here an adventure befell her, and if, as Lord Beaconsfield asserts, adventures are to the adventurous, it was but right and proper that a romantic accident should befall the mercurial Princess Elizabeth. Rushing down the stairs one day with her habitual impetuosity, she slipped and would have fallen to the bottom, bad not a gentleman who was ascending at the same moment caught her in his arms. It was a fall laden with unexpected consequences, for she had fallen into the arms of her future husband. But as yet she was not to rest in them for good. The young Princess evinced an almost savage dislike to matrimony, and in response to all proposals of marriage made to her replied: "I do not want to marry unless I can be Queen of Roumania." The reply seemed a very safe one in those days, when Roumania had but just been founded, and only as a principality, under the boyard