“'Come,' said the general, 'I see how it is. I have broken in upon a very happy party. I must make the only _amende_ in my power,--I shall be the story-teller for this evening.' “As he said this, he looked around the little circle, and by some seeming magic of his own, in an instant he had won us every one. We drew our chairs close towards him, and listened eagerly for his tale. Few people, save such as live much among children, or take the trouble to study their tone of feeling and thinking, are aware how far reality surpasses in interest the force of mere fiction. The fact is with them far more than all the art of the narrative; and if you cannot say 'this was true,' more than half of the pleasure your story confers is lost forever. Whether the general knew this, or that his memory supplied him more easily than his imagination, I cannot say; but his tale was a little incident of the siege of Toulon, where a drummer boy was killed,--having returned to the breach, after the attack was repulsed, to seek for a little cockade of ribbon his mother had fastened on his cap that morning. Simple as was the story, he told it with a subdued and tender pathos that made our hearts thrill and filled every eye around him. “'It was a poor thing, it's true,' said he, 'that knot of ribbon, but it was glory to him to rescue it from the enemy. His heart was on the time when he should show it, blood-stained and torn, and say, “I took it from the ground amid the grapeshot and the musketry. I was the only living thing there that moment; and see, I bore it away triumphantly.”' As the general spoke, he unbuttoned the breast of his uniform, and took forth a small piece of crumpled ribbon, fastened in the shape of a cockade. 'Here it is,' said he, holding it up before on? eyes; 'it was for this he died.' We could scarce see it through our tears. Poor Annette held her hands upon her face, and sobbed violently. 'Keep it, my sweet child,' said the general, as he attached the cockade to her shoulder;' it is a glorious emblem, and well worthy to be worn by one so pure and so fair as you are.' “Annette looked up, and as she did, her eyes fell upon the tricolor that hung from her shoulder,--the hated, the despised tricolor, the badge of that party whose cruelty she had thought of by day and dreamed of by night. She turned deadly pale, and sat, with lips compressed and clenched hands, unable to speak or stir. “'What is it? Are you ill, child?' said the general, suddenly. “'Annette, love! Annette, dearest!' said my uncle, trembling with anxiety, 'speak; what is the matter?' “'It is that!' cried I, fiercely, pointing to the knot, on which her eyes were bent with a shrinking horror I well knew the meaning of,--' it is that!' “The general bent on me a look of passionate meaning, as with a hissing tone he said, 'Do you mean this?'