There was no good reason why they should follow the Lipans.

[to be continued.]

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

Charlotte Corday is remembered as the assassin of the wicked Marat. No one was ever more cruel than Marat. He was one of the worst of the French Jacobins at Paris, who in 1793 practiced every kind of crime. They professed to be freemen, but were tyrants more cruel than Nero. They filled Paris with murders, executions, and every kind of misery. No one's life or property was safe, and Marat, who was now their leader, constantly urged them to new cruelty. He seemed to the people of Paris and all the world a savage monster who could only live amidst bloodshed and crimes, and had begun in France what is known as the "Reign of Terror."

There lived in the country a young girl whose intended husband, it is said, had been put to death at the suggestion of Marat. Her name was Charlotte Corday. She was about twenty-five years old, fond of reading and study, tall and beautiful, when she resolved to kill Marat. If she could destroy the monster, she thought she would save the republic and revenge her lost lover. In July, 1793, Charlotte bade her father good-by in a short note, and set out from a friend's house at Caen on her journey to Paris. She hoped to make her way into the famous club of the Jacobins, and stab Marat in the midst of his guilty companions.

Early on the second morning after she had reached Paris she went to the Palais Royal, bought a knife, and drove to the house of Marat. He had been for some time unwell, and unable to join his companions at the Jacobin Club. Charlotte was refused admittance, and went away disappointed. She went back to her hotel, wrote a short note to Marat, telling him that she wished to see him on business of importance to France, and once more returned to his house. She sent up the note. Marat read it, and ordered her to be admitted. He was in his bath; Charlotte stood alone before her victim. It was the 13th of July, 1793, about eight in the evening.

She told him of some events at Caen. Marat asked the names of the deputies from Caen, and began to write down a list of them to have them put to death. The guillotine was an instrument then employed to cut off people's heads; and Marat said, "Let them all be guillotined."

"Guillotined!" exclaimed Charlotte, with horror, and plunged the knife into Marat's heart.

"Help!" he cried; "help, my dear!"

His housekeeper and some others ran into the room. He was seen lying covered with blood, and Charlotte standing motionless beside him.

PAINTING THE PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY ON THE EVE OF EXECUTION.

A crowd gathered around the house; they carried her away to prison. She was brought to trial before the Revolutionary judges, and showed no signs of emotion or fear. "It was I that killed Marat," she said. She was condemned to death. She wrote to her father, asking his forgiveness for having given her life to her country. On the 15th of July she was led through the streets of Paris to the scaffold. Many of the people followed her with applause and cries of sympathy. She smiled as her head was cut off, looking beautiful even in death.

Marat, her victim, was buried by his fellow Jacobins with a great display. His body was covered with flowers, and his bust or statue appeared in every part of Paris. The Reign of Terror went on for two years longer. The murders and executions were fearful. But at last Robespierre, Marat's successor, was killed, and the murderers were punished. Marat's four thousand busts were thrown down, and his grave dishonored.

As for Charlotte Corday, she was a murderess roused to madness by the crimes of her victim.

HOW "THE BABY" WENT NUTTING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

BY KATE UPSON CLARK.

"Beats all," said good old Mr. Hurlbut to good old Mrs. Hurlbut, as he laid down the paper from which he had been reading—"beats all what mizzable little fellers some o' them poor children in the city be. It seems a good many folks on farms, like us, Sereny, have took 'em in 'n' kep' 'em a spell. Must 'a done the poor little things good. Law! makes me feel bad."

Good Farmer Hurlbut took off his spectacles and wiped them with great thoroughness. He was thinking not only of the little newsboys, and the other poor children of whom he had been reading, in the city, fifty miles away, but of a certain little boy of his own and "Sereny's," who had gladdened their home for nine short years, and then had died, leaving them desolate indeed, but with a warm place in their hearts for all his kind.

Presently Farmer Hurlbut spoke again, and, it seemed to Aunt Sereny, rather irrelevantly:

"Lots o' nuts this year up in the north pastur. The clump o' chestnuts is fuller 'n ever—the biggest chestnuts I ever see; 'n' up higher there's more walnuts 'n' butternuts than you ever see in your life. Guess we'll have to go over and get George's folks 'n' Eliza Jane 'n' the girls, 'n' have a picnic some warm day up there, and gather 'em."

"Yes, we must," assented kind Aunt Sereny.

"It would be sorter nice for them poor little fellers in the city to take a day off in the woods so," continued Farmer Hurlbut, jerking his thumb toward the paper from which he had been reading.

"Yes, it would," concurred Aunt Sereny.

"But," went on Farmer Hurlbut, with a puzzled expression, "how to get at 'em—that's the question."

"I should think so," said Aunt Sereny, whose sole mission in life was to agree and to smooth over and to dispense peace generally.

Suddenly Farmer Hurlbut seized his paper, and began to look over what he had been reading, passing his finger patiently along the lines.

"I thought so!" he exclaimed at last, pinning a particular place with his big thumb. "I thought I see the name of the superintendent of the society, 'n' I did. He'd know, I s'pose."

"Know what?" asked his wife, mildly.

"Why, how to get at 'em."

"Oh!" Aunt Sereny brightened up wonderfully.

"How d'ye s'pose 'twould do to ask a whole raft on 'em to come?" asked Farmer Hurlbut, reflectively.

"I'd be kinder afraid on 'em, so many, seems to me"—with a little deprecatory laugh.

"Thet's so," said her considerate husband. "They be wild little critters, so I've heerd. Mebby five or six would be enough. My! how their eyes would shine to see them nuts!"

Aunt Sereny laughed—a wholesome, sunshiny laugh as ever was heard.

"'N' I know," continued Farmer Hurlbut, affectionately, "that you'd feed 'em up, 'n' pet 'em, 'n' do 'em more good 'n all the mission schools in creation."

Aunt Sereny protested modestly, but was sure she would be willing to try and see what she could do.

There was a little time of silence, during which the clock struck nine.

"Wa'al, what say, Sereny?" said the old farmer at last.

The old lady understood him perfectly.

"I say, Josiah," she replied, with considerable emphasis—"I say, do just as you've a mind to."

The consequence of this conversation was a letter from Farmer Hurlbut to the superintendent, and later, the appearance of six ragged boys, equipped with bags, on a pleasant Wednesday morning in early November, at the railroad station in the city, ready to take the train which would reach Farmer Hurlbut's at nine o'clock in the forenoon. That is, six boys were expected. But when the gentleman who was waiting at the station to put the little party on the cars came to count them, behold! there was a seventh figure, very much smaller than any of the rest, holding on tight to a bigger boy's