oice, but slightly drawling
her words, she read:

"To the good people of Paradise! The manager of the famous American
travelling circus, lately returned from a tour of the northern
provinces, with camels, elephants, lions, and a magnificent company of
artists, announces a stupendous exhibition to be held in Lorient at
greatly reduced prices, thus enabling the intelligent and appreciative
people of Paradise to honor the Republican Circus, recently known as
the Imperial Circus, with their benevolent and discerning patronage!
Long live France! Long live the Republic! Long live the Circus!"

A resounding roll of the drum ended the announcements; the girl slung
the drum over her shoulder, turned to the right, and passed over the
stone bridge, sabots clicking. Presently from the hamlet of Alincourt
over the stream came the dull roll of the drum again and the faint,
clear voice:

"Attention! Men of Finistere! By order of the governor of Lorient,
all men--" The wind changed and her voice died away among the trees.

The maids of Paradise were weeping now by the fountain; the men
gathered near, and their slow, hushed voices scarcely rose above the
ripple of the stream where Robert the Lizard fished in silence.

It was after sunset before Jacqueline finished her rounds. She had
read her proclamation in Alincourt hamlet, she had read it in
Sainte-Ysole, her drum had aroused the inert loungers on the
breakwater at Trinite-on-Sea. Now, with her drum on her shoulder and
her sabots swinging in her left hand, she came down the cliffs beside
the Chapel of Our Lady of Paradise, excited and expectant.

Of the first proclamation which she had read she apparently understood
little. When she announced the great disaster at Metz in the north,
and when her passionless young voice proclaimed the levee en
masse--the call to arms for the men of the coast from Sainte-Ysole to
Trinite Beacon--she scarcely seemed to realize what it meant, although
all around her women turned away sobbing, or clung, deathly white, to
sons and husbands.

But there was certainly something in the other proclamation which
thrilled her and set her heart galloping as she loitered on the
cliff.

I walked across to the Quimperle road and met her, dancing along with
her drum; and she promptly confided her longings and desires to me as
we stood together for an instant on the high-road. The circus! Once,
it appeared, she had seen--very far off--a glittering creature tu