ALLAN-A-DALE.

One bright summer morning, as Robin was walking through
the greenwood, he found a young man seated, weeping, under an
oak, with a harp on the grass beside him. The kind Outlaw at
once asked the stranger why he grieved, and the poor lad told him
that he had been cheated out of his fortune, and had nothing left
but his harp; that, in consequence of his misfortunes, the father
of the maiden he was betrothed to had refused to let them marry,
and had driyen Allan-a-Dale from his castle. Robin bade him
cease weeping, and join his band, and try to live happily in the

free greenwood. So Allan-a-Dale became the Harper or Minstrel
of the Merry-men.

se Rees

MAID MARIAN anv ror WEDDING.

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Robin also, while he was rich and powerful, had been betrothed
~ to a lady whom he greatly loved; but he had never seen her since
he became an Outlaw. Still, she had not forgotten him: she
thought she ought to share his poverty as she would have done
his wealth; so she dressed herself like a boy, and went into the |
forest to seek for Robin. At last she met him, but he did not
know her in boy’s clothes, and with a drawn sword in her hand.
Maid Marian would not tell him at first who she was: she attacked
him, and fought with him, but he soon struck her sword out of
her hand. Then she took off her cap, and let her golden hair fall
over her shoulders, and Robin knew at once that it was Marian.

Friar Tuck married them, and they had a very gay wedding.
The little forest children carried green boughs before them, and
merry Sherwood rejoiced—forest fashion—at the marriage of
Robin Hood and Maid Marian.