_Round her irons, on the hill, Earth shall toss a fairy fire. Watch and listen and be still, Lest you baulk your own desire._
When she sees four azure wings Light upon her claw-like hand; When she lifts her head and sings, You shall hear and understand. You shall hear a bugle calling, Wildly over the dew-dashed down, And a sound as of the falling Ramparts of a conquered town.
_You shall hear a sound like thunder, And a veil shall be withdrawn, When her eyes grow wide with wonder, On that hill-top, in that dawn._
_Painting by_ A. C. MICHAEL _and_ _Drawings by_ H. M. BROCK, R.I.
_Copyright, 1914, by the Baroness Orczy in the U.S.A._
WE were such a happy family before this terrible revolution broke out: we lived rather simply but very comfortably in our dear old home just on the borders of the forest of Compiègne. Jean and André were the twins; just fifteen years old they were when King Louis was deposed from the throne of France, which God had given him, and sent to prison like a common criminal, with our beautiful Queen Marie Antoinette and the Royal children and Madame Elizabeth, who was so beloved by the poor!
Ah! that seems very, very long ago now. No doubt you know better than I do all that happened in our beautiful land of France and in lovely Paris about that time: goods and property confiscated, innocent men, women, and children condemned to death for acts of treason which they had never committed.
It was in August last year that they came to "Mon Repos" and arrested papa, maman, and us four young ones and dragged us to Paris, where we were imprisoned in a narrow and horrible, dank vault in the Abbaye, where all day and night through the humid stone walls we heard cries and sobs and moans from poor people who no doubt were suffering the same sorrows and the same indignities as we were.
I had just passed my nineteenth birthday and Marguerite was only thirteen. Maman was a perfect angel during that terrible time: she kept up our courage and our faith in God in a way that no one else could have done. Every night and morning we knelt round her knee, and papa sat close beside her, and we prayed to God for deliverance from our own afflictions, and for the poor people who were crying and moaning all the day.