admired the weapon, gazing at it
with all the delight most of her sex reserve for some article of dress
or decoration. She balanced it, too, in her hand, and held it to her
shoulder, with the ease of one accustomed to its use.

In every cabin some group, some home picture, met his eye; peaceful age,
happy manhood, delighted childhood, beamed around each hearth and board.
The song, the dance, the merry story, the joyous meal, succeeded each
other, as he went along. He alone, of all, was poor and sad: in his
mother's hut all was darkness and gloom; the half-suppressed sigh of
pain the only sound. The last cabin of the village, and the poorest too,
belonged to an old peasant, who had been a soldier under the Emperor
Joseph; he was a very old man, and being burdened with a large family of
grandchildren, whose parents were both dead, all he could do by hard
labour was to maintain his household, "Here," thought Hans, as he
stopped to look in, "here are some poor as ourselves,--I hope they are
happier." So they seemed to be. They were all seated on the floor of the
cabin, with the grandfather among them on a low stool, while he
performed for them the evolutions of the Grand Army at Presburg--the
great review which Maria Theresa held of all the Imperial troops. The
old man was sorely puzzled to convey a sufficiently formidable notion of
the force, for he had only some twenty little wooden soldiers to fill up
the different arms of the service, and was obliged to plant individuals
to represent entire corps, while walnut-shells answered for field-pieces
and mortars; the citadel of Presburg being performed by the bowl of hit
Meerschaum pipe.

There were many more brilliant displays met Hans' eyes that evening than
this humble spectacle, and yet not one had the same attraction for him.
What would he not have given to be among that group--to have watched all
the evolutions, many of which were now hidden from his view--perchance
to be permitted to move some of the regiments, and suggest his own ideas
of tactics! Ah, that would have been happiness indeed! How long he might
have watched there is no saying, when a slight incident occurred which
interrupted him--slight and trivial enough was it, and yet in all its
seeming insignificance to be the turning point of his destiny!

It chanced that one of the little soldiers, from some accident or other,
would not stand upright, and a little boy, whose black eyes and sunburnt
cheeks bespoke a