r_ the genuine adventures of the sailor class
were again embodied in the thrilling narrative that Cooper alone knew
how to write, and from its first appearance it has always been one of
the most popular of the author's works. In these pages occurs that
dramatic description of the last sea fight of Red Rover, one of Cooper's
finest achievements.

Cooper's popularity abroad was equalled only by that of Scott. His works
as soon as published were translated into almost every tongue of Europe,
and were sold in Turkey, Prussia, Egypt, and Jerusalem in the language
of those countries. It was said by a traveller that the middle classes
of Europe had gathered all their knowledge of American history from
Cooper's works, and that they had never understood the character of
American independence until revealed by this novelist.

PRIZE-STORY COMPETITION.

FIRST-PRIZE STORY.

Betty's Ride: A Tale of the Revolution.--By Henry S. Canby.

The sun was just rising and showering his first rays on the gambrel-roof
and solid stone walls of a house surrounded by a magnificent grove of
walnuts, and overlooking one of the beautiful valleys so common in
southeastern Pennsylvania. Close by the house, and shaded by the same
great trees, stood a low building of the most severe type, whose
time-stained bricks and timbers green with moss told its age without the
aid of the half-obliterated inscription over the door, which read,
"Built A. D. 1720." One familiar with the country would have pronounced
it without hesitation a Quaker meeting-house, dating back almost to the
time of William Penn.

When Ezra Dale had become the leader of the little band of Quakers which
gathered here every First Day, he had built the house under the
walnut-trees, and had taken his wife Ann and his little daughter Betty
to live there. That was in 1770, seven years earlier, and before war had
wrought sorrow and desolation throughout the country.

The sun rose higher, and just as his beams touched the broad stone step
in front of the house the door opened, and Ann Dale, a sweet-faced woman
in the plain Quaker garb, came out, followed by Betty, a little
blue-eyed Quakeress of twelve years, with a gleam of spirit in her face
which ill became her plain dress.

"Betty," said her mother, as they walked out towards the great
horse-block by the road-side, "thee must keep house to-day. Friend
Robert has just sent thy father word that the redcoats have not crossed
the