tention to rejoin them the moment he had led the advance a few miles
towards the Hudson, and immediately took his leave.

By this time the signal of departure had been given, and the head of the
English column was in motion. The sisters started at the sound, and
glancing their eyes around, they saw the white uniforms of the French
grenadiers, who had already taken possession of the gates of the fort.
At that moment, an enormous cloud seemed to pass suddenly above their
heads, and looking upward, they discovered that they stood beneath the
wide folds of the standard of France.

"Let us go," said Cora; "this is no longer a fit place for the children
of an English officer."

Alice clung to the arm of her sister, and together they left the parade,
accompanied by the moving throng that surrounded them.

As they passed the gates, the French officers, who had learned their
rank, bowed often and low, forbearing, however, to intrude those
attentions which they saw, with peculiar tact, might not be agreeable.
As every vehicle and each beast of burden was occupied by the sick and
wounded, Cora had decided to endure the fatigues of a foot march, rather
than interfere with their comforts. Indeed, many a maimed and feeble
soldier was compelled to drag his exhausted limbs in the rear of the
columns, for the want of the necessary means of conveyance, in that
wilderness. The whole, however, was in motion; the weak and wounded,
groaning, and in suffering; their comrades, silent and sullen; and the
women and children in terror, they knew not of what.

As the confused and timid throng left the protecting mounds of the fort,
and issued on the open plain, the whole scene was at once presented to
their eyes. At a little distance on the right, and somewhat in the rear,
the French army stood to their arms, Montcalm having collected his
parties, so soon as his guards had possession of the works. They were
attentive but silent observers of the proceedings of the vanquished,
failing in none of the stipulated military honors, and offering no taunt
or insult, in their success, to their less fortunate foes. Living masses
of the English, to the amount in the whole of near three thousand, were
moving slowly across the plain, towards the common centre, and gradually
approached each other, as they converged to the point of their march, a
vista cut through the lofty trees, where the road to the Hudson entered
the forest. Along the sweeping borders of