ety and
indulgence, but it had its effect in those bad old days of dissipation
and excess, and the simplicity and soberness of this wise young girl's
life in the very midst of so much power and luxury, made even the worst
elements in the empire respect and honor her.

It would be interesting, did space permit, to sketch at length some
of the devisings and doings of this girl regent of sixteen. "She
superintended with extraordinary wisdom," says the old chronicler
Sozemon, "the transactions of the Roman government," and "afforded the
spectacle," says Ozanam, a later historian, "of a girlish princess of
sixteen, granddaughter and sole inheritor of the genius and courage of
Theodosius the Great, governing the empires of the east and west, and
being proclaimed on the death of her brother, Augusta, Imperatrix, and
mistress of the world!"

This last event--the death of Theodosius the Younger--occurred in
the year 449, and Pulcheria ascended the golden throne of
Constantinople--the first woman that ever ruled as sole empress of the
Roman world.

She died July 18, 453. That same year saw the death of her youthful
acquaintance, Attila the Hun, that fierce barbarian whom men had called
the "Scourge of God." His mighty empire stretched from the great wall
of China to the Western Alps; but, though he ravaged the lands of both
eastern and western Rome, he seems to have been so managed or controlled
by the wise and peaceful measures of the girl regent, that his
destroying hordes never troubled the splendid city by the Golden Horn
which offered so rare and tempting a booty.

It is not given to the girls of to-day to have any thing like the
magnificent opportunities of the young Pulcheria. But duty in many a
form faces them again and again, while not unfrequently the occasion
comes for sacrifice of comfort or for devotion to a trust. To all such
the example of this fair young princess of old Constantinople, who,
fifteen centuries ago, saw her duty plainly and undertook it simply and
without hesitation, comes to strengthen and incite; and the girl who
feels herself overwhelmed by responsibility, or who is fearful of her
own untried powers, may gather strength, courage, wisdom, and will from
the story of this historic girl of the long ago--the wise young Regent
of the East, Pulcheria of Constantinople.

CLOTILDA OF BURGANDY: THE GIRL OF THE FRENCH VINYARDS

(Afterward known as "St. Clotilda," the first Queen of France.) A.D.