"The General grants thee thy life if thou wilt marry me," he said to her in a low voice.

The Spaniard cast a look of proud disdain on the officer. "Strike, Juanito," she said, in a voice of profound meaning.

Her head rolled at Victor's feet. When the Marquesa heard the sound a convulsive start escaped her; this was the only sign of her affliction.

"Am I placed right so, dear Juanito?" little Manuel asked his brother.

"Ah, thou weepest, Mariquita !" said Juanito to his sister. "Yes," answered the girl; "I was thinking of thee, my poor Juanito; thou wilt be so unhappy without us."

At length the noble figure of the Marques appeared. He looked at the blood of his children; then he turned to the spectators, who stood mute and motionless before him. He stretched out his hands to Juanito, and said in a firm voice: Spaniards, I give my son a father's blessing. Now, Marques, strike without fear, as thou art without fault."

66

But when Juanito saw his mother approach, supported by the Confessor, he groaned aloud, "She fed me at her own breast." His cry seemed to tear a shout of horror from the lips of the crowd. At this terrible sound the noise of the banquet and the laughter and merrymaking of the officers died away. The Marquesa comprehended that Juanito's courage was exhausted. With one leap she had thrown herself over the balustrade, and her head was dashed to pieces against the rocks below. A shout of admiration burst forth. Juanito fell to the ground in a swoon.

"Marchand has just been telling me something about this execution," said a half-drunken officer. "I'll warrant, General, it wasn't by your orders that

"Have you forgotten, Messieurs," cried General Gautier, "that during the next month there will be five hundred French families in tears, and that we are in Spain? Do you wish to leave your bones here?"

After this speech there was not a man, not even a sublieutenant, who dared to empty his glass.

In spite of the respect with which he is surrounded-in spite of the title of El Verdugo (the executioner), bestowed upon him as a title of nobility by the King of Spain-the Marques de Leganes is a prey to melancholy. He lives in

solitude, and is rarely seen. Overwhelmed with the load of his glorious crime, he seems only to await the birth of a second son, impatient to seek again the company of those Shades who are about his path continually.

W. W.

FROM "THE DEVIL'S DRIVE."

BY LORD BYRON.

THE Devil returned to hell by two,

And he stayed at home till five;

When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew
And bethought himself what next to do,
"And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.
I walked in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favorites thrive.

"And what shall I ride in ?” quoth Lucifer then -
"If I followed my taste, indeed,

I should mount in a wagon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnished again and again,

And at present my purpose is speed;

To see my manor as much as I may,

And watch that no souls shall be poached away.

"I have a state coach at Carlton House,

A chariot in Seymour Place;

But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends

By driving my favorite pace:

And they handle their reins with such a grace,

I have something for both at the end of their race.

"So now for the earth to take my chance."
Then up to the earth sprung he;

And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepped across the sea,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,

No very great way from a bishop's abode.

But first as he flew, I forgot to say,
That he hovered a moment upon his way

To look upon Leipsic plain;

And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

That he perched on a mountain of slain;

And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,

Nor his work done half as well:

For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That it blushed like the waves of hell!
Then loudly, and wildly, and long laughed he:
"Methinks they have here little need of me!"

But the softest note that soothed his ear
Was the sound of a widow sighing;
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying-
As round her fell her long fair hair;

And she looked to heaven with that frenzied air,
Which seemed to ask if a God were there!

And, stretched by the wall of a ruined hut,
With its hollow cheeks, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying:

And the carnage begun, when resistance is done.
And the fall of the vainly flying!

WAR.

(From a Lecture by John Ruskin.)

[JOHN RUSKIN, the eminent English art critic, was born in London, February 8, 1819. He received his education at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the Newdigate prize for English poetry (1839). After leaving the university he turned his attention to art; studied under Copley, Fielding, and Harding; and spent some years abroad, chiefly in Italy. He was Rede lecturer at Cambridge (1867); Slade professor of fine art, Oxford (1869–1879 and 1883-1884); and of late years has lived in retirement at Brantwood, on Coniston Lake. Among his numerous writings are: "Modern Painters" (1843-1860), "Seven Lamps of Architecture," "Stones of Venice," "Sesame and Lilies," "Crown