"When you come to your own wedding Let your love stories be when you're talking

AM going to the guillotine," replied Madame Roland; "a few moments and I shall be there; but those who send me thither will follow me ere long. I go innocent, but they will come stained with blood, and you who applaud our execution will then applaud theirs with equal zeal." Sometimes she would turn away

her head that she might not appear to hear the insults with which she was assailed, and would lean with almost filial tenderness over the aged partner of her execution. The poor old man wept bitterly, and she kindly and cheeringly encouraged him to bear up with firmness, and to suffer with resignation. She even tried to enliven the dreary journey they were performing together by little attempts at cheerfulness, and at length succeeded in winning a smile from her fellow-sufferer.

A colossal statue of liberty, composed of clay, like the liberty of the time, then stood in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, on the spot now occupied by the Obelisk; the scaffold was erected beside his statue. Upon arriving there, Madame Roland descended from the cart in which she had been conveyed. Just as the executioner had seized her arm to enable her to be the first to mount to the guillotine, she displayed an instance of that noble and tender consideration for others, which only a woman's heart could conceive, or put into practice at such a moment. Stay!" said she, momentarily resisting the man's grasp. "I have only one favor to ask, and that is not for myself; I beseech you grant it me." Then, turning to the old man, she said, "Do you precede me to the scaffold; to see my blood flow would be making you suffer the bitterness of death twice over. I must spare you the pain of witnessing my punishment." The executioner allowed this arrangement to be made.

THE BALD-HEADED TYRANT.

687

With what sensibility and firmness must the mind have been imbued which could, at such a time, forget its own sufferings, to think only of saving one pang to an unknown old man! and how clearly does this one little trait attest the heroic calmness with which this celebrated woman met her death! After the execution of Lamarche, which she witnessed without changing color, Madame Roland stepped lightly up to the scaffold, and, bowing before the statue of Liberty, as though to do homage to a power far whom she was about to die, exclaimed, "O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" She then resigned herself to the hands of the executioner, and in a few seconds her head fell into the basket placed to receive it,

Oh, the despot came in the dead of night,
And no one ventured to ask him why;
Like slaves we trembled before his might,
Our hearts stood still when we heard him
cry;

For never a soul could his power withstand,
That bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.
He ordered us here, and he sent us there-
Though never a word could his small lips
speak-

With his toothless gums and his vacant stare,

And his helpless limbs so frail and weak, Till I cried, in a voice of stern command, "Go up, thou bald-head from No-man's-land."

But his abject slaves they turned on me: Like the bears in Scripture, they'd rend me there,

The while they worshiped with bended knee
The ruthless wretch with the missing hair,
For he rules them all with relentless hand,
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land.

Then I searched for help in every clime,

For Peace had fled from my dwelling now Till I finally thought of old Father Time,

And low before him I made my bow. "Wilt thou deliver me out of his hand, This bald-headed tyrant from No-man'sland."

Old Time he looked with a puzzled stare,

And a smile came over his features grim. I'll take the tyrant under my care:

Watch what my hour-glass does to him. The veriest humbug that ever was planned. Is this same bald-head from No-man's-land.

THE GAMBLER'S WIFE.

THE GAMBLER'S WIFE.

REYNELL COATES.

Cold, on the hearth, the last faint My child! his child! Oh, fiend!" The clock

WHERE SHALL THE BABY'S DIMPLE BE?

TO A FRIEND IN AFFLICTION.

WILLIAM MUNFORD.

And through the darkness, smiling from the skies,

All comfort to the stricken heart Are beaming on you, brighter than those

N

DEFENCE OF PRA DEL TOR.

J. A. WYLIE.

EGOTIATIONS had been opened between the men of the Valleys and the Duke of Savoy, and as they were proceeding satisfactorily, the Vaudois were without suspicions of evil. This was the moment that La Trinita chose to attack them. He hastily assembled his troops, and on the night of the 16th of April he marched them against the Pra del Tor, hoping to enter it unopposed, and give the Vaudois "as sheep to the slaughter."

The snows around the Pra were beginning to burn in the light of the morning when the attention of the people, who had just ended their united worship, was attracted by unusual sounds which were heard to issue from the gorge that led into the valley. On the instant six brave mountaineers rushed to the gateway that opens from the gorge. The long file of La Trinita's soldiers was seen advancing two abreast, their helmets and cuirasses glittering in the light. The six Vaudois made their arrangements, and calmly waited till the enemy was near. The first two Vaudois, holding loaded muskets, knelt down. The second two stood erect ready to fire over the heads of the first two. The third two undertook the loading of the weapons as they were discharged. The invaders came on. As the first two of the enemy turned the rock they were shot down by the two foremost Vaudois. The next two of the attacking force fell in like manner by the shot of the Vaudois in the rear. The third rank of the enemy presented themselves only to be laid by the side of their comrades. In a few minutes a little heap of dead bodies blocked the pass, rendering impossible the advance of the accumulating file of the enemy in the chasm.

Meanwhile, other Vaudois climbed the mountains that overhung the