oy; but he received the news with modest gratitude and
joy, unmingled with the faintest trace of pride or conceit.

He obtained leave to visit his home on his way to Paris, and never
forgot that humble home or its inmates, as he got on in his profession.
He proved to be a good student, and grew up into a fine, soldier-like,
honorable man.

General Murat and his wife continued to befriend him, even after they
became king and queen of Naples.

In the battles of the Empire, the young lieutenant of cavalry so
distinguished himself that he rose to a high rank. So one day, before
his brown hair was turned gray, and before his good grandmother's white
head had been hidden in the grave, Leopold Koerner entered his native
village a General,--though not as his brother Heinrich had prophesied,
"the General of all the drummers."

This was not his first visit home after leaving the Polytechnic. Once
he had returned to purchase, with his well-saved pay, a small property
for his brother, who had chosen the peaceful calling of a miller; and
once again, to give away in marriage his sweet sister Madeline, who
became the wife of the village Notary.

At this time Leopold offered to return to the bride her mother's
prayer-book, which he had always worn, he said, over his heart, on
weary marches, and into battle.

"No, my brother," said Madeline, "I will not take it. Wear it still,
to remind thee of our mother and of Heaven. Prayer is a soldier's best
breastplate."

A REBUS.

Entire, at an army's head I stand,
Marches and sieges I command,
The foremost fighter of the time:
_Behead me_, on the mimic stage
I pass for fine, poetic rage,
Passion and agony sublime.

_Behead again_, complete the fall,
From a mighty Major-General
To an insect most exceedingly small.
'T is marvellous, yet we have seen
Such magic changes before, I ween.

_Grant-rant-ant._

LITTLE CARL'S CHRISTMAS-EVE.

"Come in!" shouted together the host and hostess of a little German
wayside inn, near the banks of the Rhine, and not far below the city of
Basle, and the borders of Switzerland. It was Christmas-eve, and a
tempestuous night. The wind was raving round the little inn, and
tearing away at windows and doors, as though mad to get at the brave
little light within, and extinguish it without mercy. The snow was
falling fast, drifting and driving, obstructing the highway, blinding
the eyes of man and beast.