f mind and
body, she blindly assented to everything they asked her, was sentenced
to perpetual imprisonment, and forced to put on a woman's dress which
she had repeatedly declared she would never do so long as she was thrown
entirely in the company of men. But she was forced to obey the bidding
of her persecutors, and then followed such degradation and insults as
are almost beyond belief, and then, oh the shame of it, she was
condemned to die by burning, on the tenth of May, 1431! Though worn with
suffering and sorrow, she faced this crowning injustice with the
dauntless courage which had ever been hers on the field of battle, and
died with the Cross held high before her eyes and the name of Jesus on
her lips.

The peasant girl of Domremy, the warrior of Orleans, the King's saviour
at Rheims, the martyr whose death left a great ineffaceable stain on the
honour both of France and of England, twenty-five years later was
cleared of all the charges under which she was put to death, and in our
own time has been canonised by a tardy act of the church of Rome, and
to-day Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of France, nay, Maid of the World stands out
on the pages of history as one inspired by God, and God alone. To her
remains, as Kossuth has said, "the unique distinction of having been the
only person of either sex who ever held supreme command of the military
forces of a nation at the age of seventeen."

VICTORIA:

A Girl Queen of England

IN the early years of the nineteenth century, frequenters of that part
of London near the beautiful Kensington Palace and the still more
beautiful gardens bearing its name, used to enjoy almost daily glimpses
of a round-faced, red-cheeked child whose blue eyes were so bright with
health and happiness that it was a pleasure to watch her.

Sometimes the little girl was seen accompanied by a party of older
persons, and riding a donkey with a gay harness of blue ribbons, and it
was noticeable that she always had a merry greeting for those who spoke
to her in passing. At other times she would be walking, with her hand
holding tight the hand of a little playmate, or on other days she was
wheeled in a small carriage over the gravel walks of the shady Gardens,
followed by an older girl who would sometimes stop the carriage and let
a stranger kiss the blue-eyed occupant of the carriage. On pleasant days
this same little girl could frequently be seen in a simple white dress
and big shade hat, watering