eling the presence of the stranger as a thing
of gloom and sadness.

"Supper over, my uncle, perhaps hoping to relieve the embarrassment
he labored under, asked permission of the general for us to remain,
saying,--

"'My little people, sir, are great novelists, and they usually amuse me
of an evening by their stories. Will this be too great an endurance for
you?'

"'By no means,' said the general, gayly; 'there's nothing I like better,
and I hope they will admit me as one of the party. I have something of a
gift that way myself.'

"The circle was soon formed, the general and his aide-de-camp making
part of it; but though they both exerted themselves to the utmost to win
our confidence, I know not why or wherefore, we could not shake off the
gloom we had felt at first, but sat awkward and ill at ease, unable to
utter a word, and even ashamed to look at each other.

"'Come,' said the general, 'I see how it is. I have broken in upon a
very happy party. I must make the only _amende_ in my power,--I shall be
the story-teller for this evening.'

"As he said this, he looked around the little circle, and by some
seeming magic of his own, in an instant he had won us every one. We drew
our chairs close towards him, and listened eagerly for his tale. Few
people, save such as live much among children, or take the trouble to
study their tone of feeling and thinking, are aware how far reality
surpasses in interest the force of mere fiction. The fact is with them
far more than all the art of the narrative; and if you cannot say 'this
was true,' more than half of the pleasure your story confers is lost
forever. Whether the general knew this, or that his memory supplied
him more easily than his imagination, I cannot say; but his tale was
a little incident of the siege of Toulon, where a drummer boy was
killed,--having returned to the breach, after the attack was repulsed,
to seek for a little cockade of ribbon his mother had fastened on his
cap that morning. Simple as was the story, he told it with a subdued and
tender pathos that made our hearts thrill and filled every eye around
him.

"'It was a poor thing, it's true,' said he, 'that knot of ribbon, but it
was glory to him to rescue it from the enemy. His heart was on the time
when he should show it, blood-stained and torn, and say, "I took it from
the ground amid the grapeshot and the musketry. I was the only living
thing there that moment; and see, I bore it away triumphant