had fought for Charles and for his father during the Civil War, and who
were now neglected, while the treasury was emptied for French
favorites, and while the policy of England itself was bought and sold
in France. Many and many a time, when other women of her kind used
their lures to get jewels or titles or estates or actual heaps of
money, Nell Gwyn besought the king to aid these needy veterans. Because
of her efforts Chelsea Hospital was founded. Such money as she had she
shared with the poor and with those who had fought for her royal lover.

As I have said, she is a historical type of the woman who loses her
physical purity, yet who retains a sense of honor and of honesty which
nothing can take from her. There are not many such examples, and
therefore this one is worth remembering.

Of anecdotes concerning her there are many, but not often has their
real import been detected. If she could twine her arms about the
monarch's neck and transport him in a delirium of passion, this was
only part of what she did. She tried to keep him right and true and
worthy of his rank; and after he had ceased to care much for her as a
lover he remembered that she had been faithful in many other things.

Then there came the death-bed scene, when Charles, in his inimitable
manner, apologized to those about him because he was so long in dying.
A far sincerer sentence was that which came from his heart, as he cried
out, in the very pangs of death:

"Do not let poor Nelly starve!"

MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR

It is an old saying that to every womanly woman self-sacrifice is
almost a necessity of her nature. To make herself of small account as
compared with the one she loves; to give freely of herself, even though
she may receive nothing in return; to suffer, and yet to feel an inner
poignant joy in all this suffering--here is a most wonderful trait of
womanhood. Perhaps it is akin to the maternal instinct; for to the
mother, after she has felt the throb of a new life within her, there is
no sacrifice so great and no anguish so keen that she will not welcome
it as the outward sign and evidence of her illimitable love.

In most women this spirit of self-sacrifice is checked and kept within
ordinary bounds by the circumstances of their lives. In many small
things they do yield and they do suffer; yet it is not in yielding and
in suffering that they find their deepest joy.

There are some, however, who seem to ha