one from the first as being endowed with a rare quality of goodness. Brown, waving hair, worn at half-length, shaded with rebellious curls a brow as pure as a child's; changeable gray eyes gathered light or darkened with the ever-varying thoughts which animated them. The face was delicately oval in form, and a firm, almost imperceptibly arched nose gave strength and character to a physiognomy the ideality of which was no less pronounced than was its look of extreme youth. An expressive, mobile mouth, teeth like so many brilliant pearls, a complexion which had successfully defied the fatigue and broken rest inseparable from an exalted station of life—all these represented a personality the indefinable charm of which has never been adequately portrayed.
     The Queen's costume had been designed to facilitate an active out-of-door existence. It was original—indeed, peculiarly her own idea at the time, although often copied since then. It consisted of a straight tunic of embossed velvet, bringing to mind the hunting-costumes seen on stained-glass windows of the time of Charles VII of France, a skirt somewhat longer than the over-garment, revealing long gaiters that reached half-way to the knee. Her Majesty gave a final touch to this medieval attire by wearing a becoming little cap made of the same fabric as the dress, the effect of which, as a whole, was largely due to her incomparable carriage.
     At the first words that Queen Elizabeth addressed to me I was struck by the mellow quality of her voice. The conversation soon became interesting, and my annoying timidity vanished with the effort to respond to the countless ideas suggested by this enchantress—ideas with which the very atmosphere of the room seemed charged.
     While talking, her Majesty took up some work that had been laid aside when I entered, and went on with her free-hand illuminating after the style of the Grimani breviary, done on large sheets of parchment, which were destined to form a part of the wonderful "Book of the Twelve Apostles," afterward given to the cathedral of Curtea d' Arges.
     The text of this entire work was written out in Gothic characters by the Queen, whose designs introduce different varieties of the fauna of the country, and whose figures of the saints display the admirable regard for detail that is so noticeable in the missals of the old monks, with whom this form of art originated.
     We discussed literature and painting, and all at once I became aware of that strong bond of sympathy which has sustained me in different circumstances of my life.
     The Queen referred to her works with extreme modesty. Up to that time she had absolutely refused to have her already voluminous writings published, and she yielded the point only when she came to realize the amount of trouble it gave those about her to copy and preserve her manuscripts. The fact of her celebrity as an author, acquired under the pseudonym of "Carmen Sylva," is acknowledged throughout the world, though comparatively few of her poems have been translated into French or English.
     The little volume entitled "A Queen's Thoughts" was, I believe, the first to win general recognition and appreciation in behalf of the writer's philosophic trend of thought and clear order of intelligence. Queen Elizabeth honored me by a gift of these aphorisms in manuscript, and her beautiful handwriting, with its regular upstrokes, in a way suggests the flight of birds of passage soaring toward the horizon.
     If such details and daily occurrences as served to inspire her Majesty's improvisations could be noted down on the margin of each volume, they would make interesting reading. A chance word let fall in conversation frequently formed the corner-stone of a romance, a fairy-tale, or a poem. To this acquisitive mind all that came was as food for the creative flame, ready to kindle at a spark.
     I do not know how long we talked before the opulent silhouette of the Queen's reader, the Baroness de W—, was seen through the tangled mass of flowers. She came to warn her Majesty that the luncheon-hour drew near, and that it was time to make a change in her dress. Simultaneously there entered a number of joyous demoiselles d'honneur, to conduct me to the room that had been prepared for me, where I too was attired in the costume de rigueur.
     Half an hour later the members of the court and invited guests assembled in one of the open galleries of the old cloister to await the coming of the sovereigns. They were not long in making their appearance, and were duly announced by an aide-decamp.
     The King's noble countenance, delicate yet forceful, bore visible traces of the fatigue and care imposed by the recent war. The Queen looked even more queenly than before in her richly embroidered national dress, and