of seeing him, but had stopped at the village of Fierbois, close by, to wait his permission for appearing before him. Inquiring further, he heard a tale of wonder; but so strange did it appear, that he and all to whom it was related could scarcely credit its truth, and felt fearful of giving too joyful and ready a belief to such good news.

CHAPTER X.

Joan of Arc.

In the little village of Domremy, in a valley on the Meuse, on the borders of Lorraine, between the towns of Neufchateau and Vancouleur, lived an honest shepherd, named Jacques d'Arc. He had several children, and it is to one of these, his daughter Jeanne d'Arc, or, as she is most commonly called in English, Joan of Arc, that our tale must now turn.

Joan of Arc was born in the year 1410. Some accounts indeed say that she was born seven years earlier, but I believe this date is the correct one. She was bred up to a hard country life, and accustomed to much out of doors work; some say she acted as a servant in a little road-side inn, and others that she worked only for her father; but however this might be, she grew up strong and active, and all agree that she

was remarkable for her skill in the management of horses, being frequently in the custom of mounting them without a saddle and riding them to water.

From her earliest years Joan was a very singular girl. She took no pleasure in the games and sports of other children. Her great delight was to wander in solitary places, and she was particularly fond of finding her way into the church, or sitting on the steps at its entrance, and there thinking upon the goodness and power of God, and the Virgin Mary, and the saints-for you know that those who profess the Roman Catholic religion think it right to pray to the Virgin and the saints, that is, the souls of such persons as have lived so pious a life on earth that the pope, who is the chief of the Roman Catholic church, has declared there can be no doubt that they are now in heaven. They believe that the Virgin and the saints will listen to their prayers, and intercede for them with God to pardon their sins; and they make offer

ings before the images of the saints, sometimes of ornaments to adorn their tombs or statues, sometimes of money for priests to perform religious services there; all which is believed to be very pleasing to the saints. About half a league from Domremy was a forest, which the simple country people imagined was haunted by fairies and near this wood, not far from a pure and limpid spring, and on the high road from Domremy to Neufchateau, stood an ancient and majestic beech, which went by the name of the Fairy tree. It was said that the fairies had been seen assembled in that place, singing and dancing round the tree. Few people, and those only the most ignorant, now believe that fairies ever existed; but in the time of Joan of Arc the case was very different. Scarcely any one disbelieved their existence. And every where numbers might be found who were ready to assert positively that they had seen them. The mists of a warm summer's evening, viewed at a distance in the twilight, assume strange