honious
self-chosen title: CARMEN--the "Song"--which gave her happiness and
ease, and SYLVA--the "Wood,"--in which, among the birds, she had learned
to sing. The telling of stories in prose and verse has been her greatest
delight since she was a child.

Queen Elisabeth of Roumania is a daughter of Prince Hermann of Neuwied,
and was born on the 29th of December, 1843. Neuwied was a small
principality on the bank of the Rhine, near Ehrenbreitenstein, and her
family was an old and honored one, living at the castle of "Monrepos,"
a short distance from the quaint old town of Neuwied, on that part of
the Rhine, where every rocky height has its romance, and every green
valley its legend. In her early youth, the village-children were the
only playmates of the little princess. When a mere child she developed a
poetic taste and talent. At nine she began to write. At sixteen her
tasks were long and severe: She studied history, the languages (Latin,
Italian, French, and English), grammar, arithmetic, geometry, and
literature, and read poetry, history, and the drama for recreation. From
eighteen to twenty-four she studied, traveled and taught the poor. She
had both talent and inclination for teaching, and was actually preparing
herself for a school-teacher's position, when the marriage with the
Prince of Roumania prevented her from carrying out her plan.

In 1866, Prince Karl of Hohenzollern had been placed upon the throne of
Moldo-Wallachia by the European powers, with the title as Prince of
Roumania. He proved himself an efficient and energetic ruler, and his
popularity was soon so well founded that he was induced to go out
a-wooing, so as to be able to insure the perpetuation of his race to the
principality. In earlier years he had met Princess Elisabeth of Neuwied
at the Court of Berlin, and he there almost saved her life. She was
descending the stairs when her foot slipped, and no one knows what the
result might have been, had not the gallant prince, then a handsome
young lieutenant, caught her in his arms and saved her. Be this as it
may, when the princess and her mother were in Cologne, in 1868, Prince
Karl, then Prince Carol I. of Roumania, paid them a visit. "What a
handsome fellow he has grown to be!" exclaimed Princess Elisabeth.
"Yes," replied her mother, "and he is here for the purpose of asking for
your hand." "He is a man whom everyone must admire," answered the
princess, and on the following day her betrothal to the