The English had looked with exultation and disdain upon their apparently weak foe, and Lord Cornwallis had confidently written: "The boy cannot escape me!" But the despised "Boy," was of a more heroic and irresistible nature than the proud general imagined, and gave him a most perplexing chase in a sort of military game of "hide-and-seek," and at length the young Marquis caught his boastful foe in so cunning a trap that all the English hosts could not deliver him; and this same triumphant "Boy," stood by and witnessed his surrender. The young girl-wife in France glories most of all in her husband's relinquishment of personal glory, to spare bloodshed, and his unselfish resignment of his merited place, that thereby greater honor should crown the head of Washington.

With the honored names of the women of our American Revolution, let us write the name of Madame La Fayette, and let their shining memories be entwined together, as we render the homage of grateful recollection. As the names of Washington and La Fayette, THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, and THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY, shall forever shine side by side in the Temple of Freedom, which their united efforts founded upon the soil of our Republic; so indissolubly united with the memories of the heroic women of the American Revolution, must forever glow the fame of that selfsacrificing wife, whose heroism made possible the aid and devotion of the Knight of Liberty in behalf of the cause of American Independence.

CHAPTER II.

COLUMBUS AT SANTA FÉ.

BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND.*

Οι

I.

N the royal palace at Santa Fé,

Waved Castile and Aragon's flags that day.

And one dazzling azure, the Spanish sky
Watched the beautiful Vega smiling lie.

The land, drowned in blossoming roses, still
With joy of the conquest was all athrill.

The silver cross on Alhambra's height

Held the Crescent's place in the dawn's red light.

Through old mosques-a glory of gems and gold-
Te Deum its thunderous triumph rolled.

And Grenada heard in her stately halls
How softly at twilight the vesper calls.

For with well nigh eight hundred years, the reign
Of the Moslem was ended in Christian Spain.

II.

Half camp and half city, Santa Fé

Watched the towers of Grenada loom far and gray.

The Presence Chamber was all ablaze

With treasures and splendors of ancient days.

The walls in a gorgeous bloom were hung

Where the priceless Eastern tapestries swung;

*Author of " Mostly Marjorie Day," etc.

For in flush of triumph-in pomp and power,
Met proudest court of the world that hour.

The sovereigns sat where the rich dais shone
Side by side stood Castile and Aragon's throne.

The canopy's cloth-of-gold was spread
A glittering roof-o'er each royal head.

There was Ferdinand's handsome, subtle face,
There was Isabel's beauty-her queenly grace:

While below them, the columned vista long
Held flower of the court-a splendid throng:

There stood haughty nobles whose feudal state
In palace and castle with King could mate.

There, scarred old warriors whose life-work done The Moors' fair kingdom for Spain had won.

There, mitred prelate and ancient sage,
And silken courtier, and slender page:

With women whose witching smile and glance
Round that elder time weave a gay romance:

While glitter of armor and toss of plume,
And rustle of robe, filled the audience room.

For if ever the matin-song should swell

Through the mosques of the vanquished infidel,

Then the sovereigns had given their royal wordAt the court should the Genoese be heard.

III.

He stood there, a stranger, apart-alone,

His hour struck at last-stood before the throne:

With head in the Presence he lifted, white,
As the sea's wild surf in the cold moonlight.

A tall, grave man, with strong sculptured face,
Whose long lines hinted an alien race:

Vigorous-erect-it still was plain

The prime of manhood was on the wane:

Though a dauntless soul through deep eyes gra

Shot swift the fire of his life's young May.

He bore no title-no name to grace
The suit he brought to the audience-place.

In the crowded palace at Santa Fé
He of Genoa, poorest stood that day.

And there, half scornful and half amazed,
On the stately stranger the courtiers gazed:

For he seemed-in their midst apart-to see
Some glory which dimmed all that pageantry.

IV.

In the audience-chamber at Santa Fé
Columbus of Genoa was heard that day.

He stood with a calm and noble mien,
In the august presence of King and Queen.

But his words at first to his hearers seemed,
The wildest tale ever madman dreamed.

For he told of far lands which lay in waste,
Of desert seas that no bark had traced:

And he talked of a long, mysterious quest
For empires which rose in an unknown West,

Till the courtiers thought as they smiled apart,
It were saner for lands in the moon to start.

But there of a sudden, a change befell,
As though in the air had been wrought a spell.

They listened on all sides-they tried to reach The meanings half masked by the broken speech

Of the foreign tongue, for while he spoke,
As from ancient darkness, a new world broke.

They saw its vast forests, its hill-slopes green,
Its valleys that nested and laughed between-

Saw the sweep of great plains, and the mountains rise Till they shouldered their granite against the skies.

And amid all the wildness-the savage gloom,
Broke the seas of that New World's wonderful bloom.

And fair dawns reddened the far skies o'er,
And winds loitered happy about the shore:

While great cities girdled with massive walls,
And proud with temples, palaces, halls,

Gleamed through the talk which held that day
The crowd in the court-room at Santa Fé.

V.

Across from centuries dim and gray
We gaze on that famous scene to-day:

And we wonder still, the New World's fate
On a woman's breath that hour should wait.

For startled, intent, her fair proud face
The Queen leaned toward the audience-place.

A light grew slow in her grave, sweet eyes-
Half a new hope's dawn-half an awed surprise:

Would her instinct mount to that moment's height, To its challenge-its grandeur infinite?