LOUIS DUVAL.
 to say, stroked her grandson's hair with a trembling
 hand, and stooping down with difficulty, she kissed
 his pale forehead.
 "" And what, grandmother-what were you going
 to say ?"
 Why, then, my darling child," Margaret answered
 in a low, calm voice, "we must do as thousands
 besides in poor unhappy France are this day doing-
 what we ourselves have begun to do, dear Louis."
 "What is that, grandmother?" asked the boy.
 We are doing nothing, I think; I wish we were, I
 wish I had something to do. What is it so many are
 doing, grandmother ? "
 STARVING, my poor boy; dying with hunger,
 nothing more. It is best to starve, I think," con-
 tinued Margaret, bitterly; best for me, for I am
 old and good for nothing; best for you, my patient
 Louis, it will save you from the bad days that
 must come; best for your father, too, if all I hear
 be true. Ah, Louis, it was a sorrowful day when
 your poor mother sickened and died; but we ought
 to be glad now that she is at rest."
 Louis did not speak again for some time; but,
laying his head on his grandmother's knee, he buried
his face in the folds of her gown, and sobbed aloud.
 It was quite true that both Louis and his grand-
mother were pinched with hunger, as well as shivering
with cold. They had tasted no food that day; and
one small loaf of coarse bread was all they, and
Louis's father, had eaten the day before. Indeed,
for days, and weeks, and months, this poor family had
been struggling with want, and had only been pre-
served from starving by parting with almost all they
had in the world, excepting the clothes they wore.
 Henry Duval, the son of Margaret, and the father