f some traveller in the desert, the accents fell upon
my almost broken heart, suggesting a thought of hope where, all was
darkness and despair, I listened to each word with a tremulous fear
lest she should cease to speak, and dreading that my ecstasy were but a
dream. From that hour, I wished to live; a changed spirit came over me,
and I felt as though with higher and more ennobling thoughts I should
once more tread the earth. Yes, from the humble lips of a peasant girl I
learned to feel that the path I once deemed the only road to heroism and
high ambition could be but "the bandit's trade," who sells his blood for
gain. That war which animated by high-souled patriotism can call forth
every sentiment of a great and generous nature, becomes in an unjust
cause the lowest slavery and degradation. Lydchen seldom quitted
my bedside, for my malady took many turns, and it was long--many
months--after that I was enabled to leave my bed and move up and down
the chapel.

'Meanwhile the successes of our army had gradually reduced the whole
country beneath French rule, and except in the very fastnesses of the
mountains the Tyrolese had nowhere they could call their own. Each day
some peasant would arrive from the valleys with information that fresh
troops were pouring in from Germany, and the hopes of the patriotic
party fell lower and lower. At last one evening as I sat on the steps of
the little altar, listening to Lydchen reading for me some Tyrol legend,
a wild shout in the street of the village attracted our notice, which
seemed to gain strength as it came nearer. She started up suddenly, and
throwing down her book rushed from the chapel. In another moment she was
back beside me, her face pale as a corpse, and her limbs trembling with
fear.

'"What has happened? Speak, for God's sake! what is it?" said I.

'"The French have shot the prisoners in the Platz at Innspruck!
twenty-eight have fallen this morning," cried she, "seven from this very
village; and now they cry aloud for your blood; hear them, there!"

'And as she spoke a frightful yell hurst from the crowd without, and
already they stood at the entrance to the chapel, which even at such a
time they had not forgotten was a sanctuary. The very wounded men sat
up in their beds and joined their feeble cries to those without, and the
terrible shout of "blood for blood!" rang through the vaulted roof.

'"I am ready," said I, springing up from the low step of the altar.
"T