Terrible were the sufferings of the poor soldiers | considered as the beginning of the end. Govern at the outposts; ill fed and ill clad, numbers were brought in daily, frost-bitten and dying. Yet through all hope did not die! Tidings reached us of the defeat of the Army of the North. Still the people hoped! Several times sorties were made, all ending alike, in a harvest of suffering and death, nothing more. Still they hoped against hope! So late as the 22nd a demonstration was made before the Hôtel de Ville against surrender; shots were fired, and a few lives lost. This was the only blood shed during the siege in civil strife. So far at least the astute German chancellor, who counted so much on enemies within aiding the enemies without, was out in his reckoning. During these weeks, when the very air seemed heavy with doom, we went on much the same as before, doing what we could to help among the sick and the suffering-Augustine, Nina, and I, and even little Arnaud. Poor Arnaud! Who would have recognized in that pale, quiet little being, with the thin cheeks and mournful eyes, the rosy, merry child, that had hailed the war with such boyish delight. And Nina was even more changed; daily I thought her sweet face grew more spirit-like, her fragile form more shadowy. My heart ached whenever I looked at her. But Augustine, though pale and worn with watching and grief, was altered only for the better; his troubled, tempest-tossed spirit had found perfect rest and peace. Very sweet and precious were the hours we spent together, the more precious that they were but few. Only, sometimes my heart sank with the dreary feeling of one left alone in the dark, while others have pressed on into the light. New light, new grace, new power, came daily upon Augustine's spirit; and Nina could follow it. For me, my faith was so weak, my heart so fettered with old chains-broken, indeed, yet not off-my mind so filled with earthly fears and sorrows, that I could only see, dimly and afar off, the things in which they rejoiced. And so it is with me in measure still. At last the conviction forced itself on all minds that the time was come when further resistance would be impossible. The rationing of the bread, which took place on the 19th, was omen. ment had once declared such a step would never be necessary. On the 22nd, General Trochu, who had declared the Governor of Paris would never capitulate, resigned, in favour of General Vinoy. This was accepted as another Yet the people still cried, "Do something, do something!" But nothing could be done. Our knowledge of several officers at headquarters kept us better informed than most of the real state of things throughout; and we knew, after the last vain and bloody affair at La Malmaison and Montretout on the 19th, it was acknowleged that further bloodshed would be monstrous. Had it not long been? On the 26th, Jules Favre left for Versailleson the 27th, Paris knew the end had come. A little after ten on the night of the 29th all firing ceased. For the first time for four long months the midnight silence was unbroken by a single gun. Our ears, grown accustomed to the monotonous boom of cannon, the hiss and crash of shells, the strange groaning vibration of the air over our heads, caused by the cannonade, felt dull and numbed in the deep silence. That night I traced these lines in my long unopened journal, with trembling hand and sorely bur dened heart. January 29.-The end has come! The end, for which we have watched, and waited, and prayed! The end, to which we once looked with such high hopes and beating hearts! But that was long ago. "It has come at last. For how many, as to us, too late. Come, not with the shout of victory, with floating banners and pealing bells, but with utter humiliation and galling chains, and vainly bitter tears. It is true, Paris has won for herself a place in the heroic annals of beleaguered cities. But what of that? Oh! honour too dearly bought. And will the world accord her even that?-that world that looked on so coldly at her bitter need. Perhaps not. And yet, the gallant wrestling with despair, the calm endurance when hope was fled, the generous spirit, undaunted by the pressure of unparalleled misfortune, may surely claim so poor a meed. "The end has come! Weary, desolated bosoms heave a sigh of relief that the long agony is over. Ours-mine? Yes; we are glad, but with a gladness that is bitterer and heavier than many a sorrow. "After the storm comes a calm, but in that calm is leisure to remark damages done in the hour of its might, and to call over the musterroll. "Peace is on every lip, but it comes as a wail. Will peace fill vacant places, open red, untimely graves, bind up broken hearts, give back blighted hopes? Certainly there is no peace in this tortured heart of mine to-night. As I turn with listless fingers these pages, so blotted and blurred with tears, so scorched and stained by War's accursed footsteps, my spirit swells with passionate anguish. The dear household names, dropped one by one from our outward life,-Léon, Victor, mamma, Lilian, Uncle Lucien! Is the list filled even yet? When I look at Nina's fading form, my heart grows faint with fear; and the only star that shines undimmed in our sky is veiled from my eyes with blinding tears. But it is there; the shimmer of its intercepted rays falls softly on these faithless tears; and even that broken light makes it not utter darkness. "O Jesus! thy love, thy grace, thy tender pity, are unchilled, unhindered, unchanged! Thou knowest how keen is this anguish. But it has driven me to THEE. And the blessing outweighs the pain, even here. " The 29th was a melancholy day for Paris and for France. On it the German troops occupied the forts of Paris, and-but this of course was not known to us till some days later the tattered remnant of Bourbaki's army, our last hope, was defeated at Portarlier, and driven, in a deplorable state of wretchedness, across the frontier, into Switzerland. An armistice of three weeks was agreed upon, during which the elections for a National Assembly, to be formed at Bordeaux, were to be held. Upon this Assembly was to devolve the painful task of arranging with our conquerors as to the terms of peace. The Prussians were not to enter the city; the National Guard were allowed to retain their arms, also such a portion of the army as was judged necessary to maintain the peace of Paris-which was little likely to be disturbed, when the Prussian guns in our own forts commanded the city. For some days there was little change in the daily life of the inhabitants; but by degrees food and fuel began to pour into the city. First and foremost came the free and generous help of England. But the need was greater than the supply. Still, had it not been for the open hand and noble promptitude of England and other nations, Count Bismarck's gloomy prognostic would have been realized, and thousands of helpless beings would have perished from hunger. "We will hold out as long as our bread lasts," had been the watchword of our rulers for weeks past. How literally that had been carried out, has now been proved. Sad was the sight of our poor soldiers returning unarmed from the scenes of so much dreary waiting and suffering.. Haggard, tattered, demoralized; not seeking even to disguise their joy that all was over at last. And with them, pale men, with worn, weary faces, and mournful eyes, whose heads were yet borne proudly, and whose expression was such as Victor's countenance might have worn, had he been at the head of his Bretons that day. The streets were filled with soldiers, line and mobile; and now that all was over, and the strain relaxed, the reaction set in, party-spirit awoke, bitter reproaches, recriminations, and accusations passed from lip to lip. And day by day, long files of artillery rolled through the streets, on their way to the forts and the hands of their German owners. The ramparts were deserted and dismantled. The siege of Paris had passed into history. Communications with the provinces were not restored, but three deputies were sent by the Government to Bordeaux to superintend the elections there. People began to leave Paris, as passes were readily granted to all who applied for them at the Prefecture of Police. There were seen some mournful sights when the poor villagers returned to their once pretty homes, and blooming gardens, and found only blackened ruins. Little change came to us. There was as much to do as before, except that no fresh wounded were being brought in. Augustine contrived to raise a sufficient sum of money on our family plate and jewels to meet our immediate necessities; and we waited-for what? Could we have told? And yet in each heart, unacknowledged, undefined, the root of the old, long-buried hope began to bud once more. We never spoke of this,-only of Uncle Lucien's liberation, and that with sad forebodings. We knew with what morbid shrinking he had contemplated the captive's fate, would he, with health impaired and spirits shattered by all he had gone through, have survived it? But that other hope! I read it in Nina's broken quiet, in the feverish spot of colour that went and came on her delicate cheek, in the unrest of her too shining eyes, which seemed always open at all hours of the night. I watched her with painful apprehension. Mind and body strung to such a tension so long, what would the reaction be? She grew weaker, and by degrees was compelled to relax some of her exertions; and at times she would lie for hours without speaking. So a week passed away, when one evening she looked up suddenly, and met my anxious, tearful gaze fixed on her sweet faded face. I rose, and, kneeling beside the couch, drew her slight form into my arms. She laid her head wearily on my shoulder. "Renée, dear," she said, "I am troubling you again. I thought to hide this from you; but I see I cannot; your love is too keen-sighted. O Renée, do you think it very foolish to have a little hope?" My darling," I answered, "hope is hard to kill. It is not quite dead even in my heart." "Is it not? Oh, I thought it was in mine. I thought I had learned to think of Léon only as with Jesus, that I looked forward only to meeting him there in the Father's house above. And I was content to wait for that meeting then. But now--but now!-O Renée, now the time has come to which we once looked as the end of all our sorrows, the old voice wakes in my heart, the old craving for his earthly presence and forgiveness returns, and with them the old hope, faint and trembling indeed, but hope still. And with the hope, the fear, the shrinking, and the unrest-not, thank God, the old bitterness. No; for I know it is all in my Father's hands, and I am content it should be. But it seems to me as if I must hear Léon's voice speak forgiveness before I die." "My dearest," I said, a cold chill creeping round my heart, "why do you speak of dying. O Nina! if Leon should be spared, what would life be to him without you? And if not-for, O Nina, darling, the hope, if hope there be, is indeed a hairbreadth, a shadow—if not — Nina, Nina," I sobbed, "do not you leave me too." "Dear, dear Renée," she murmured; and for a time we wept together. Then she went on: "It must be as God wills, Renée. I have thought sometimes it would be best for Leon if he took me home-that is, if Léon is still on earth. He may have met another who has been to him what I refused to be. I know what you would say, Renée; I know his noble heart; he would be true to me, did he know how I had suffered, and repented; and that is what I fear. But, oh! only once to hear him say he forgave me!" "O Nina, do not distress yourself so causelessly. Living or dead, Léon is yours, and yours only," I said. For a time she made no answer; then, raising her sweet, tearful face, with that sad, patient smile, which makes the heart ache to see, she said: "But, O Renée, though I cannot help being restless, tossed about with hope and fear, I know God is not angry with me for either-for the hope or the pain. He knows all about it, and I can trust him through it all." have to go through a series of questions about the new-comer's health and state, before he could ask him to throw him a rope, or give him a helping hand. We ran over all the ordinary and indispensable questions and good wishes on each side; and then they plunged with extraordinary volubility into the subject nearest their hearts. But I must begin at the commencement of the Rasheiya Mission, in order that what follows may be more comprehensible. In the tempest of war and massacre that passed over Syria in 1860, Rasheiya was one of the rocks around which the waves beat, and over which the red, cruel tide finally settled. Reeking from the slaughter of the pent-up Christians in Deir el Kamr and Hasbeiya, the Druzes, flushed with victory, moved upon Rasheiya. They were a little delayed in killing the men, and sacking their houses, in the small villages scattered among the mountains along their route. At last they arrived on the high ridge above the castle, raised their war-chant, and steadily descended on the devoted town. Confident of success, they were swooping down the hill, when curling puffs of smoke from behind fifty rocks first announced to them that their plans were about to be interfered with, and their progress disputed. The Druze leader, who had already become an object of veneration, as he was considered impervious to bullets, fell mortally wounded at the first discharge. Several others fell by his side; and the front ranks seeing the leader, from whose breast bullets were wont to fall harmlessly, pierced and dying, they staggered and fell back. The rear of the Druzes having closed up, all were preparing to rush upon their invisible assailants, when the second division of the Christians, who had reserved their fire to give the others time to reload, poured a deadly volley into the dense crowd of Druzes. Almost every bullet took effect, and a panic seized the Druze host; but one of the Atrash family, with hereditary aptitude for irregular warfare, changed the retreat into a flank attack on the Christians. The Christians, who had seen the Druzes retreat, had left their rocks, and were preparing, chiefly under the direction of a very young Syrian Jacobite, to cut off the retreat of the Druzes, when both parties met face to face. I have been en abled to study the scene of this conflict in company of both Druzes and Christians who were engaged in the fray. The Christians were in an old quarry, and the Druzes in a confused crowd rushed upon them across the open space. The Christians repeated their tactics. The first half of them fired over a natural rampart into the very breasts of their enemies, and the reserve, taking deadly aim, completed their confusion. The Druzes, who supposed this was another party of Christians, turned and fled in all directions. Some of them, making a circuit, got into Rasheiya; but the greater part, in a confused crowd, were pursued down the steep mountainside towards Dhaher el Ahmar, which Christian village they sacked and burned after a brief resistance. And here the Druzes avenged their late defeat by practising unwonted cruelties on the men; but, as in all other places, they respected the women. The Christians were greatly elated by their victory. They brought out their oldest wine and drank freely. The young Syrian, who had already distinguished himself, laboured hard during the night to arouse his brethren to a sense of their danger, and to induce them to prepare for the morrow; but in vain. The Druzes, hearing that the Christians had given themselves up to tumultuous indulgence, entered a quarter of the town by night. Then the vain glorying of the Christians gave place to despair. The young Syrian leader reminded them of how God had delivered them on the previous day, and urged them to defend their homes, and at least to sell their lives dear; but they seemed to have lost all manliness, and only appealed to the Virgin. In this state they were entreated by the authorities to give up their arms, and enter the castle, with the solemn promise that the soldiers would protect them. The majority of the Christians complied, and they had no sooner entered the castle, than the authorities threw open the gates. The Druzes rushed in, and, in the pres ence of the soldiers drawn up in line, butchered the unarmed Christians as they had done in Has beiya and Deir el Kamr. The young Syrian, unable to save his home, cut his way into Damascus after unheard of trials, with a small but resolute band; and when the city was sacked |