sustained the siege with undaunted bravery. The combat lasted an entire day, and one after another the savages sunk in death, pierced by a French bullet. The survivors went off at night, full of rage and shame, having succeeded in inflicting no other injury than the firing of an out-house belonging to M. d'Ailbout. During the long combat, M. Closse lost only one man, who was killed by an accidental discharge of a cannon. M. Brisac, an officer of the French army, was not so fortunate, however. He had determined to draw off and attack a second body of savages who had come to the assistance of the first party, but the wily Indians met stratagem by stratagem, and succeeded in deceiving him on the route. Seeing that they _must_ perish, as their enemies were ten times as numerous as they, the French resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. They erected a circular barricade of stones, and entrenched themselves within it, firing at random on the furious savages, who howled for their blood. The Iroquois fought like incarnate demons, and every stone they flung with unerring precision shattered a white man's skull. Like the Spartan three hundred, this brave French band determined not to be _taken alive_, so the living supplied the places of their fallen comrades until only five or six men remained. But the Indians at last effected an entrance within the barricade, and killed the survivors with the most | horrible cruelties. M. Brisac, the brave commander, was reserved by the savages to die last, that they might torture him at their ease, yet while he was able to speak, he never ceased exhorting his men to die like Christians. The constancy of the devoted band astonished the Iroquois, who could not refrain from expressing their admiration of the white man's constancy. The death of such heroic Christians is as much to be admired as that of the early martyrs, because like them they combatted and suffered for religion and the glory of God. Sister Bourgeois relates that during the first eight or nine years of the existence of the colony, they could not succeed in raising healthy children, all of them dying at a very tender age, as much on account of the rigorous climate, as of the privations and sufferings which were endured by their mothers, who, being all natives of sunny France, had enjoyed, at least in a moderate way, the good things of this life. In Canada, during these early days, they lacked nearly everything, except good will and an undying love of the Catholic Faith, bequeathed to them by their sainted forefathers. It may be also, that Almighty God wished to to take to Himself these precious children, as the first fruits of the New World. The first girl that arrived at maturity in the country was Jane Loisel. She became a pupil of Sister Bourgeois, to whose care she was confided at the age of four, and remained in the Sister's school to her eighteenth year, when she married John Beauchamp.