"That is but fair," answered Prince John," and it shall not be refused thee. If thou beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle with silver pennies for thee."

The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size placed in its room. Hubert took his aim with great deliberation, long measuring the distance with his eye, while he held in his hand his bended bow, with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made a step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm, till the centre or grasping place was nigh level with his face, he drew his bow-string to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the centre.

"You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert, or that had been a better shot."

So saying, Locksley stept to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bow-string, yet it alighted. in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which marked the centre, than that of Hubert.

"By the light of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "and thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!"

"Shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for thee!"

Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not neglecting the caution which he had received from his adversary, he made the necessary allowance for a very light air of wind, which had just arisen, and shot so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of the target. "A Hubert! a Hubert!" shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than in a stranger.

Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley," said the Prince with an insulting smile.

"I will notch his shaft for him, however," replied Locksley.

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And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers. This must be the devil, and no man of flesh and blood," whispered the yeomen to each other; "such archery was never seen since a bow was first bent in Britain."

"And now," said Locksley, "I will crave your Grace's permission to plant such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonny lass he loves best."

He then turned to leave the lists, but returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man's thumb. He began to peel this with great composure, observing at the same time that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. "A child of seven years old might hit yonder target with a headless shaft, but," added he, walking deliberately to the other end of the lists, and, sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he that hits that rod five-score yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, and it were the stout King Richard himself."

My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life -and neither will I. I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see."

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Cowardly dog!" said Prince John. "Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot; but, if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did so. Howe'er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior skill.” "I will do my best, no man can do more."

So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill; his arrow split the willow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his person. "These twenty nobles," he said, "which, with the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we will make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our body guard, and be near to our person. For

never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft."

"Pardon me, noble Prince," said Locksley, "but I have vowed, that if ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother, King Richard. These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I."

Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd, and was seen

no more.

A Plea for the Old Year*

BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

I see the smiling New Year climb the heights-
The clouds, his heralds, turn the sky to rose,
And flush the whiteness of the winter snows,
Till Earth is glad with Life and Life's delight.
The weary Old Year died when died the night,
And this newcomer, proud with triumph, shows
His radiant face, and each glad subject knows
The welcome monarch, born to rule aright.

Yet there are graves far off that no man tends,
Where lie the vanished loves and hopes and fears,
The dreams that grew to be our hearts' best friends,
The smiles, and, dearer than the smiles, the tears-
These were that Old Year's gifts, whom none defends,
Now his strong Conqueror, the New, appears.

*Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown & Co. (Reprinted by permission.)

Fagin's Last Day

(From Oliver Twist.)

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

[It will be remembered that Fagin was leader of a band of thieves, and that little Oliver Twist had once been held in the Jew's school for educating criminals. Through the influence of Mr. Brownlow and some friends the kidnapped boy was rescued and the Jew brought to justice.]

E sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for a seat and bedstead, and casting his bloodshot eyes upon the ground, tried to collect his thoughts. After a while he began to remember a few disjointed fragments of what the judge had said, though it had seemed to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. These gradually fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more; so that in a little time he had the whole almost as it was delivered. To be hanged by the neck till he was dead-that was the end-to be hanged by the neck till he was dead!

As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold, some of them through his means. They rose up in such quick succession that he could hardly count them. He had seen some of them die-and had joked, too, because they died with prayers upon their lips. With what a rattling noise the drop went down, and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of clothes!

Some of them might have inhabited that very cell-sat upon that very spot. It was very dark; why didn't they bring a light? The cell had been built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies-the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil. Light, light!

At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and walls, two men appeared-one bearing

a candle, which he thrust into an iron candlestick fixed against the wall; the other dragging in a mattress on which to pass the night, for the prisoner was to be left alone no

more.

Then came night-dark, dismal, silent night. Other watchers are glad to hear the church clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day. To the Jew they brought despair. The boom of every iron bell came laden with the one, deep, hollow sound-death! What availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning which penetrated even there to him? It was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning.

The day passed off. Day? There was no day. It was gone as soon as come; and night came on again-night so long, and yet so short; long in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours. At one time he raved and blasphemed, and at another howled and tore his hair. Venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away with curses. They renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off.

Saturday night. He had only one night more to live. And as he thought of this the day broke-Sunday.

It was not until the night of this last awful day that a withering sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either two men, who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. He had sat there awake, but dreaming. Now, he started up every minute, and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they-used to such sights-recoiled from him. with horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone, and so the two kept watch together.

He cowed down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. His red hair hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots;