at
last, and the name of "Good Queen Maud" was long an honored memory among
the people of England.

And she was a good queen. In a time of bitter tyranny, when the common
people were but the serfs and slaves of the haughty and cruel barons,
this young queen labored to bring in kindlier manners and more gentle
ways. Beautiful in face, she was still more lovely in heart and life.
Her influence upon her husband, Henry the scholar, was seen in the
wise laws he made, and the "Charter of King Henry" is said to have been
gained by her intercession. This important paper was the first step
toward popular liberty. It led the way to Magna Charta, and finally
to our own Declaration of Independence. The boys and girls of America,
therefore, in common with those of England, can look back with interest
and affection upon the romantic story of "Good Queen Maud," the
brave-hearted girl who showed herself wise and fearless both in the
perilous mist at Edinburgh, and, later still, in the yet greater dangers
of "the black lists of Gloucester."

JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS, A.D. 1414.

Count William of Hainault, of Zealand and Friesland, Duke of Bavaria
and Sovereign Lord of Holland, held his court in the great, straggling
castle which he called his "hunting lodge," near to the German Ocean,
and since known by the name of "The Hague."(1)

(1) "The Hague" is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage--the haag, or
"hunting lodge," of the Graf, or count.

Count William was a gallant and courtly knight, learned in all the ways
of chivalry, the model of the younger cavaliers, handsome in person,
noble in bearing, the surest lance in the tilting-yard, and the stoutest
arm in the foray.

Like "Jephtha, Judge of Israel," of whom the mock-mad Hamlet sang to
Polonius, Count William had

"One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well;"

and, truth to tell, this fair young Jacqueline, the little "Lady of
Holland," as men called her,--but whom Count William, because of her
fearless antics and boyish ways, called "Dame Jacob,"(1)--loved her
knightly father with equal fervor.

(1) Jaqueline is the French rendering of the Dutch Jakobine--the
feminine of Jakob, or James.

As she sat, that day, in the great Hall of the Knights in the massive
castle at The Hague, she could see, among all the knights and nobles
who came from far and near to join in the festivities at Count Wil