AN INCIDENT AT RATISBON. 1. You know we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away, On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming day, 2. Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans Let once my army leader Lannes Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew Until he reached the mound. 3. Then off there flung in smiling joy By just his horse's mane, a boy: (So tight he kept his lips compressed, You looked twice e'er you saw his breast 4. "Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace We've got you Ratisbon! The marshal's in the market-place, And you'll be there anon To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I to heart's desire Perched him." The chief's eye flashed; his plans Soared up again like fire. 5. The chief's eye flashed; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes: "You're wounded!" pride "Nay," his soldier's Touched to the quick, he said; "I'm killed, sire." And his chief beside, Smiling, the boy fell dead. Robert Browning. HOW MAGGIE CUT HER HAIR. I. MAGGIE and Tom came in from the garden with their father. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, coming in with her hair rough, as well as out of curl. "Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver, looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to whisper to Maggie a command to go and have her hair brushed. 2. "Well, and how do you do? and I hope you are good children, are you?" said Aunt Glegg, in a loud, emphatic way. "Look at me, now. Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your shoulders." I “Well, my dears," said Aunt Pullet, in a compassionate voice, "you grow wonderful fast. think the gell has too much hair. I'd have it thinned and cut shorter, sister, if I was you; it isn't good for her health." 3. "No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough; there's nothing ails her. But it would be as well if Bessie would have the child's hair cut so it would lie smooth." 4. A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast. Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her and whispering in her ear, "go and get your hair brushed—do, for shame! I told you not to come in without going to Martha first, you know I did." 5. "Tom, come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough. "Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside the door. something I want to do before dinner." There's "There's no time to play anything before din ner," said Tom. 6. "Oh yes, there is time for this-do come, Tom." Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors. "What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened. 7. Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight across the middle of her forehead. "Oh, my buttons, Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd better not cut any more off." Snip! went the great scissors again, while Tom was speaking; and he couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun: Maggie would look so queer. "Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her own daring, and anxious to finish the deed. 8. "You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in an admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors. "Never mind-make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed. 9. The black locks were so thick—nothing could be more tempting to a lad who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony's mane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of shears meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another, and the hinder locks fell heavily on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she had emerged from a wood into the open plain. 10. “Oh, Maggie," said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as he laughed, "oh, my buttons, what a queer thing you look! Look at yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw our nutshells to at school." II. Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly of her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action: she didn't want her hair to look pretty-that was out of the question-she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like the idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's flushed cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little. 12. "Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh, my!" "Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie in a passionate tone, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping and giving him a push. |