hurch for waxen images!'

'Take care you do not break us,' exclaimed Louis, whose fair cheek had
won this tribute; and his smile, and the readiness of his reply, won
his admission to the first of the steps up the barricade.

'Halte la!' cried a large-limbed, formidable-looking ruffian on the
summit, pointing his musket towards them; 'none passes here who does
not bring a stone to raise our barricade for the rights of the Red
Republic, and cry, La liberte, l'egalite, et la, fraternite, let it fit
his perfidious tongue as it may.'

'There's my answer,' said Louis, raising his right arm, which was
dripping; with blood, 'you have made me mount the red flag!'

'Ha!' cried the friendly fishwife, 'Wounded in the cause of the nation!
Let him go.'

'He has not uttered the cry!' shouted the rest.

Louis looked round with his cool, pensive smile.

'Liberty!' he said, 'what _we_ mean by liberty is freedom to go where
we will, and say what we will. I wish you had it, my poor fellows.
Fraternity--it is not shooting our brother. Egalite--I preach that
too, but in my own fashion, not yours. Let me pass--si cela vou est
egal.'

His nonchalant intrepidity--a quality never lost on the French--raised
an acclamation of le brave Anglais. No one stirred a hand to hinder
their mounting to the banquette, and several hands were held out to
assist in surmounting the parapet of this extempore fortification.
Isabel bowed her thanks, and Louis spoke them with gestures of
courtesy; and shouts of high applause followed them as they sped along
the blood-stained street.

The troops were re-forming after the repulse, and the point was to pass
before the attack could be renewed, as well as not to be mistaken for
the insurgents.

They were at once challenged, but a short explanation to the officer
was sufficient, and they were suffered to turn into the Rue Richelieu,
where they were only pursued by the distant sounds of warfare.

'Oh, Lord Fitzjocelyn!' cried Isabel, as he slackened his pace, and
gasped for breath.

'You are sure you are not hurt?' he said.

'Oh no, no; but you--'

'It is very little,' he said--'a stray shot--only enough to work on
their feelings. What good-natured rogues they were. I will only twist
my handkerchief round to stop the blood. Thank you.'

Isabel tried to help him, but she was too much afraid of hurting him to
draw the bandage tight.

They dashed on, finding people on the watch for tidings, and mee