in-va'ders, those who forcibly enter.
bat-tal'ions, bodies of troops.
in-ured', used to.

a-chieve', to accomplish.
as-sail'ants, those who attack.
in"ef-fec'tu-al, without result.
om'i-nous, foreboding evil.

gren"a-diers', a company of soldiers

serving in a battalion.

tor'por, sleepiness.

bay'o-net, a blade attached to the end of a musket.

mu'ti-nous, disobedient to superior officers.

FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-93), an American historian, was born in Boston. His historical works include "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," -from which this story is taken,-"Pioneers of France in the New Wor'd," "Discovery of the Great West," and "Montcalm and Wolfe." He is an entertaining writer, and holds a high place in American literature.

SNOW-BOUND

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingéd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,

In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below-
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,

A fenceless drift what once was road;

The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

spher'ule, a little sphere.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (Selected)

ge"o-met'ric, relating to the lines

and forms of geometry.

pel'li-cle, a filmy substance. fir'ma-ment, the sky.

un'i-verse, the entire creation.

Write the story of a storm that you have watched.
Where was it? What kind of storm was it?
How did the storm begin?

Describe the nature of the storm.

How long did it last? What damage did it do?

THE BELL RINGER OF NOTRE DAME

Quasimodo was born blind of one eye, humpbacked, lame. Bell ringer of Notre Dame at the age of fourteen, a new infirmity soon put the finishing touch to his misfortunes; the bells had broken the drums of his ears: he became deaf. The only avenue that Nature had left open to him to the world was suddenly closed forever.

After all, he never turned his face to the world of men save with regret; his cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures, kings, saints, and bishops, who at least did not laugh at him, and never looked upon him otherwise than with peace and good will.

The other statues, those of monsters and demons, did not hate Quasimodo. They rather mocked other men. The saints were his friends and blessed him. The monsters were his friends and protected him. Thus he had long conversations with them. He would sometimes pass whole hours before one of these statues, in solitary chat with it.

And the cathedral was not merely company for him, it was the universe; nay, more, it was Nature itself. He never dreamed that there were other hedgerows than the stained-glass windows in perpetual bloom; other shade than that of the stone. foliage always budding, loaded with birds in the thickets of Saxon capitals; other mountains than the colossal towers of the church; or other ocean than Paris roaring at their feet.

But that which he loved more than all else in the motherly building, that which awakened his soul and bade it spread its poor stunted wings folded in such misery, that which sometimes actually made him happy, was the bells. He loved them,

he caressed them, he talked to them, he understood them. From the chime of the steeple over the transept to the big bell above the door, he had a tender feeling for them all. The belfry of the transept and the two towers were to him like three great cages,

NOTRE DAME, PARIS

in which the birds, trained by him, sang for him alone; and yet it was these very bells that had made him deaf.

To be sure, their voice was the only one he could now hear. For this reason the big bell was his best beloved. She was his favorite of the family, and had been christened Marie. She hung alone in the south tower with her sister Jacqueline, a bell of less size inclosed in a smaller cage close

beside her own. This Jacqueline was named for the wife of Jehan Montague, who gave the bell to the church.

In the second tower there were six other bells; and lastly, the six smallest dwelt in the belfry over the transept with the wooden bell, which was rung only from the afternoon of Maundy Thursday till the morning of Holy Saturday or Easter

Eve. So there were fifteen bells, but Marie was Quasimodo's favorite.

It is impossible to give any idea of his joy on those days when full peals were rung. When the archdeacon dismissed him with the word "Go," he ran up the winding staircase more rapidly than any one else could have gone down. He reached the aerial chamber of the big bell, breathless; he gazed at it an instant with love and devotion, then spoke to it gently, and patted it, as you would a good horse about to take a long journey. He condoled with it on the hard work before it.

After these initiatory caresses he called to his assistants, stationed on a lower story of the tower, to begin. They then hung upon the ropes, the windlass creaked, and the enormous. mass of metal moved slowly. Quasimodo, panting with excitement, followed it with his eye. The first stroke of the clapper upon its brazen wall made the beam on which he stood quiver.

Quasimodo vibrated with the bell. "Here we go! There we go!" he shouted with a mad burst of laughter. But the motion of the great bell grew faster and faster, and as it traveled an ever-increasing space, his eye grew bigger and bigger, more and more glittering.

At last the full peal began; the whole tower shook: beams, leads, broad stones, all rumbled together, from the piles of the foundation to the trefoils at the top. Then Quasimodo's rapture knew no bounds: he came and went; he trembled from head to foot with the tower. The bell, let loose, and frantic with liberty, turned its jaws of bronze to either wall of the tower in turn,-jaws from which issued that whirlwind whose roar men heard for four leagues around.

Quasimodo placed himself before those gaping jaws; he rose and fell with the swaying of the bell, inhaled its tremendous