cending the throne of Palmyra, declared herself
"Zenobia Augusta, the Empress of the East," and, after the manner of her
time, extended her empire in every direction until, as the record says:
"A small territory in the desert, under the government of a woman,
extended its conquests over many rich countries and several states.
Zenobia, lately confined to the barren plains about Palmyra, now held
sway from Egypt in the south, to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the
north."

But a new emperor ruled in Rome: Aurelian, soldier and statesman.
"Rome," he said, "shall never lose a province." And then the struggle
for dominion in the East began. The strength and power of Rome, directed
by the Emperor himself, at last triumphed. Palmyra fell, and Zenobia,
after a most heroic defence of her kingdom, was led a prisoner to Rome.
Clad in magnificent robes, loaded with jewels and with heavy chains
of gold, she walked, regal and undaunted still, in the great triumphal
procession of her conqueror, and, disdaining to kill herself as did
Cleopatra and Dido, she gave herself up to the nobler work of the
education and culture of her children, and led for many years, in her
villa at Tibur, the life of a noble Roman matron.

Such, in brief, is the story of Zenobia. You must read for yourselves
the record of her later years, as it stands in history, if you would
know more of her grandeur in her days of power, and her moral grandeur
in her days of defeat.

And with Zenobia fell Palmyra. Centuries of ruin and neglect have passed
over the once fairy-like city of the Syrian oasis. Her temples and
colonnades, her monuments and archways and wonderful buildings are
prostrate and decayed, and the site even of the glorious city has been
known to the modern world only within the last century. But while time
lasts and the record of heroic deeds survives, neither fallen column nor
ruined arch nor all the destruction and neglect of modern barbarism can
blot out the story of the life and worth of Bath Zabbai, the brave girl
of the Syrian desert, whom all the world honors as the noblest woman of
antiquity--Zenobia of Palmyra, the dauntless "Queen of the East."

HELENA OF BRITAIN: THE GIRL OF THE ESSEX FELLS.

(Afterward known as "St. Helena," the mother of Constantine.) A.D. 255.

Ever since that far-off day in the infancy of the world, when lands
began to form and rivers to flow seaward, the little river Colne has
wound its crooked way through