BY Selina A. Bower, AUTHOR OF "FROM ADVENT TO ADVENT." LONDON: JARROLD & SONS, 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. [ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ] To be had also from the Author. ADDRESS—MRS. BOWER, RINGLAND VICARAGE, NORWICH....

The Princess Alice was the second daughter and third child of our own beloved Queen Victoria and the late Prince Consort, "Albert the Good." Our deepest sorrowful interest has recently been excited by the touching and sudden way in which this lovely and gifted woman has been called from her home on earth to her eternal home in heaven. The Princess was born on April 25th, 1843, and was very gladly welcomed by the warm, true mother's heart of Her Majesty, who has ever shown and expressed the deepe

Mrs. Hannah More spent her happy childhood at Stapleton, near Bristol; and her early girlhood in Bristol itself, as a pupil in the school of her three elder sisters. Besides these three sisters, whose names were Mary, Betty, and Sally, there was also one younger than Hannah herself, named Patty. The five little girls were the children of a Mr. Jacob More, the head master of a foundation school at Stapleton. Mr. More had married the daughter of a farmer, who had been carefully brought up, and pos

Henry Grey was the Marquis of Dorset, and married Frances Brandon, the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and his beautiful wife, Mary, the sister of Henry VIII. This Mary was for three months Queen of France; and when Louis XII. left her a widow, she was again married, almost immediately, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Their child Frances was the mother of Lady Jane Grey, who was born in 1537. There were two other little girls younger than Lady Jane, Katherine and Mary. All the three childre

Not very far from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, there is now a fine Gothic building, where the old mansion of the Hastings family formerly, and for centuries, had stood. The situation is lovely, for Donnington-park, with its large forest trees and magnificent old oaks, forms a more than usually beautiful surrounding to the extensive and immediate grounds. Those, to the north, were precipitous, and the broken craggy ground, with hanging woods, give additional charm to the sweeping valleys

Queen Elizabeth, who was the second daughter of King Henry VIII., was born at Greenwich on the 7th of September, 1533, in a tapestry-covered chamber in the palace. This tapestry represented the parable of the Ten Virgins, and the half-unconscious eyes of the royal infant often rested upon the hazy blue dresses of the quaint maidens with their odd little lamps, as the days of early babyhood went softly by. The King had his young daughter very magnificently christened by Archbishop Cranmer. It was

Let us sketch a scene in the west of our island home. Long, rolling, soft, beautiful blue waves are dashing lightly upon a clear beach of wide sparkling sand, leaving behind, as the tide gradually ebbs, a ribbed and rippled surface. A rather narrow coast-line presents a somewhat scanty amount of cultivation; cottage and mansion lying here and there, as convenience or fancy may have suggested to the possessor. Now and then a tiny clean Welsh village, or small town, claims a space of country which

James V., of Scotland, was dangerously ill owing to severe disappointments and defeats experienced in his border war with Henry VIII., of England, and dying at Falkland, when, on the 8th of December, 1542, a message came to him from Linlithgow Palace, stating that his Queen, Mary of Guise, had a baby daughter. The king, rendered sorrowful by his trials and his sickness, replied, in his own expressive language, "Ay, it cam' (meaning the kingdom of Scotland) wi' a lass, and it will gang wi' a lass

Long ago, and far away, this Indian Princess was born, in 1594. Pocahontas was a distinguished woman for two reasons, which render her short life one of singular interest. One of these reasons was the effectual aid she rendered when quite a young girl to the early English settlers in the United States. The other reason, and a far higher one, was that Pocahontas was the first heathen amongst the Red Indians who was converted to Christianity in Virginia. The readers of "The Rosebud" will be intere

Norwich has been called "The City of Gardens;" for behind the large houses belonging to professional men, and business men, which front the narrow irregular streets, there are sweet lawns and well-cared-for flower borders, with trees and shrubs planted so thickly round the walls, or the walls themselves so covered with the trailing tendrils of fresh creepers, that imagination might fancy the scene one of pure country loveliness. The beautiful taper spire of the rather small, but very elegant Cat

One of the most dangerous and rugged coasts of England is that of Northumberland. This is partly owing to the proximity of the group of tiny islands called the Farne Islands; which number about twenty. When the sea is at all rough, and the wind high in this vicinity, the wild waves rush with violence between the somewhat narrow island channels, and lash themselves into fretted fury, as they curl over in frothy foam. Many years ago, on one of the Farne Islands named the Longstone, a lighthouse wa

Elizabeth Fry, subsequently so well known as the kind visitor and instructress of the females in Newgate, was born on the 21st of May, 1780, in St. Clement's parish in the old city of Norwich. Her father's name was John Gurney; her mother, whose maiden name was Bell, was a lineal descendant of Robert Barclay, the Apologist of the Quakers. The Gurneys of Norwich trace their family back to the days of William Rufus, if not to the times of William the Conqueror. Elizabeth was one of twelve children

Let us turn to an old Westmoreland family, residing between three and four hundred years ago, in the style of the period, at Sizergh Castle. Sir Thomas Strickland, the head of that family, manifested loyal attachment to the house of Stuart, and some of the lands and hereditary possessions, both in Westmoreland and Lancashire, were eventually lost through the steady adherence of Sir Thomas and his relatives to this cause. We read of one daughter of the house in the time of Henry VIII., whose name