And so it happened that Sir Walter Raleigh, the graceful, the gracious, the generous, had spread his cloak in the pathway of Queen Elizabeth and had been taken into her especial favor.

The Queen was nineteen years older than Sir Walter; that is to say, she was in her fifties, and he was in his thirties.

But Queen Bess hated old age, and swore a halibi for the swift passing years, and always delighted in the title of the "Virgin Queen."

Sir Walter did one great thing for England, and one for Ireland. He taught the English the use of tobacco, and he discovered the "Irish potato"—which is native to America.

They do say that Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth enjoyed many a quiet smoke with their feet on the table—so as to equalize circulation. Both of them were big folk, with plans and ambitions plus. Sir Walter was contemporary with Shakespeare, and in fact looked like him, acted like him and had a good deal of the same agile, joyous, bubbling fertility of mind. That is, Sir Walter and William were lovers by nature; and love rightly exercised, and alternately encouraged and thwarted, gives the alternating current, and lo! we have that which the world calls genius. And I am told by those who know, that you can never get genius in any other way.

Good Queen Bess—who was not so very good—fanned the ambitions of Sir Walter and flattered his abilities. And of course any man born in a lowly station, or high, would have been immensely complimented by the gentle love-taps, and sighs, vain or otherwise, not to mention the glimmering glances of the alleged Virgin Queen.

But a good way to throttle love is to spy on it, question it, analyze it, vivisect it. And so Sir Walter's bubbling heart had chills of fear when he discovered that he was being followed wherever he went by the secret emissaries of Elizabeth.

Had he been free to act he would have disposed of these spies, and quickly too; but he was in thrall to a Queen, and was paying for his political power by being deprived of his personality. Oho, and Oho! The law of compensation acted then as now, and nothing is ever given away; everything is bought with a price—even the favors of royalty.

And behold! In the palace of the Queen, as janitor, gardener, scullion and all-around handy man was one John White, obscure, and yet elevated on account of his lack of wit.

He was so stupid that he was amusing. Sayings bright and clever that courtiers flung off when the wine went around were imputed to John White. Thus he came to have a renown which was not his own; and Sir Walter Raleigh, with his cheery, generous ways, attributed many a quiet quip and quillet to John White which John White had never thought nor said.

Now John White had a daughter, Eleanor by name, tall and fair and gracious, bearing in her veins the blood of Vikings bold; and her yellow hair blew in the breeze as did the yellow hair of those conquerors who discovered America and built the blockhouses along the coast of Rhode Island.

Doubtless in his youth John White had a deal of sturdy worth, but a bump on the sconce at some Donnybrook Fair early in his young manhood had sent his wits a woolgathering.

But the girl was not thus handicapped; her mind was alert and eager.

The mother of Eleanor had passed away, and the girl had grown strong and able in spirit through carrying burdens and facing responsibilities. She knew the limitations of her father and she knew his worth; and she also knew that he was a sort of unofficial fool for the court, being duly installed through the clever and heedless tongue of Sir Walter Raleigh.

Who would ever have thought that Sir Walter, the diplomat, the strong, the able, was to be brought low by this fair-haired daughter of John White, the court fool!

"You are Sir Walter Raleigh," said this girl of nineteen one day to Sir Walter when they met squarely face to face in a hallway. It was a bold thing to do to stop this statesman, and she only a daughter to a court fool, and herself a worker below stairs!

Sir Walter smiled, removed his hat in mock gallantry, and said, "I have the honor to be your obedient servant. And who are you?"

The girl, bouyed up by a combination of pride and fear, replied, "I am Eleanor White, the daughter of the man whom your wit has rendered famous." And their eyes met in level, steady look. Fair femininity aroused caught the eye and the ear of Sir Walter.

"Yes," said he, "I think I have seen you. And what can I do for you?"

"Only this," said Eleanor, "that from this day forth you will not attribute any more of your ribaldry to my father."

"Otherwise, what?" asked Sir Walter.

"Otherwise you will have me to deal with," said the proud Eleanor, and walked past him.

He tried to call her back; he felt humiliated that she did not turn and look, much less listen. He had been snubbed.

The banderilla went home, and the next day Sir Walter felt that he must hunt out this girl with the yellow locks and make peace with her, for surely he of all men did not want to hurt the feeling of any living being, neither did he want his own feelings hurt.

So he sought her out, and that which began in a quarrel soon evolved into something else. There were meetings by moonlight, notes passed, glances given, hand-clasps in the dark, and all of those absurd, foolish, irrelevant and unnecessary things that lovers do.

The girl was not of noble birth. But neither was Sir Walter, for that matter. Love knows nothing of titles and position. But how could these two ever imagine that they could elude the gimlet eyes of Good Queen Bess, who wasn't so very good! Queen Elizabeth had ways of punishing that were exquisite, deep, delicate and far-reaching, which touched the very marrow of the soul.

Sir Walter had been presented by the Queen with a title to all the land in America, from Nova Scotia to Florida; and he, in pretty compliment, had officially named this tract of land Virginia.

The French had taken possession of the New World at the North, and the Spaniards at the South, and along the coast of what is now North Carolina the English had planted a colony.

It was the intention of Sir Walter to send expeditions over and take the whole land captive, so that Virginia would in fact be the land of the Virgin Queen.

At the center of this tract along the coast was to be the city of Raleigh. The Queen and Sir Walter had worked this out at length, and she had given him a special charter for the great city to be.

And now behold! She, with the mind of a man, had perfected her plans for the building of the city of Raleigh. She planned an expedition, and fitted out the ships with sixty men and women from a receiving-ship that lay in the Thames.

These people were being sent out of England for England's good. And these were the people who were to found the city of Raleigh; and the Governor of this colony was to be—John White! he was to be the first mayor, Lord Mayor, of the city of Raleigh.

Queen Elizabeth had selected a husband for Eleanor White, an unknown youth—a defective, in fact, and one without moral or mental responsibility. She had forced a marriage, or in any event had recorded it as such. The youth was known as Ananias Dare. Even in the naming of this individual, who had never dared anything, the name "Ananias" carried with it a subtle sting.

John White and his daughter Eleanor, and Ananias Dare, were taken forcibly and put on the ship, which was duly provisioned, and the order given to found the city of Raleigh on the Island of Roanoke in the country called Virginia. A suitable sailor was selected as navigator, and orders were given him to land the colonists, and come back.

And so the expedition sailed away for the New World; and Sir Walter Raleigh in the secret of his room beat his head in anguish 'gainst the wall and called aloud for death to come and relieve him of his pain. And thus did Queen Elizabeth dispose of her rival, and punish with fantastic hate and jealousy the man she loved.

John White, Eleanor and Ananias Dare, with the motley group of unskilled men and women, were duly landed in the forest on Roanoke Island. Battle with the elements requires judgment, skill, experience, and these were things that our poor colonists did not possess.

Two weeks after landing on Roanoke Island a daughter was born to Eleanor. The captain of the ship had given orders that if the babe was a boy it was to be named Walter Raleigh Dare; if a girl the name was to be Virginia.

And they called the child Virginia Dare, and her name was so recorded in the history of the colony. She was duly baptized a week later, and the record of her birth and baptism still exists in the Colonial Archives in London.

This was the first white child born in America.

Very shortly after the baptism of the babe, the captain of the ship sailed away for England, leaving the colonists in their ignorance and helplessness to battle with the elements, wild beasts, and Indians as best they could.

We can imagine with what cruel delight Queen Elizabeth called Sir Walter Raleigh into her presence and had him read aloud to her and the assembled court the record of the birth of Virginia Dare.

As for the colonists, their days were few and evil. Dissensions and feuds arose, as they naturally would. John White was deposed as Governor, and when he resisted he was killed.

The idea of going to work, tilling the soil, and building a permanent settlement was not in the hearts of those people. They expected to find gold and silver and fountains of youth. They felt they were marooned, robbed and stranded. The Indians, at first fearful, were now jealous of these white intruders. The quarrel came and the Indians fell upon the colonists and killed every one. Every one, did I say? There was one saved; it was the little white baby, Virginia Dare.

She was rescued by a squaw, who but a short time before had lost her own babe, and her hungry mother heart went out to that helpless little white waif. She seized upon the child and carried it away into the forest for safety.