* * *

"While France was torn by those terrible Internal convulsions, it was
also fighting the combined armies of other nations, particularly
Austria and Prussia, who were moved against it from sympathy with the
king, and a desire to reinstate him on his throne, and a sense of danger
to themselves if the disorganizing principles of the revolutionists
should spread into their territories.

"Piedmont was involved in this conflict. Perhaps you remember that it is
separated from Dauphiny, in France, by the Cottian Alps, and that among
the valleys on the Piedmontese side dwell the Waldenses or
Vaudois-evangelical Christians, who were for twelve hundred years
persecuted by the Church of Rome.

"Though their own sovereigns often joined in these persecutions, and the
laws of the land were always far more oppressive to them than to their
popish fellow-citizens, the Waldenses were ever loyal to king and
country and were sure to be called upon for their defence in time of
war.

"In the spring of 1793--some three months after the beheading of King
Louis XVI.--and while the poor queen, the dauphin and the princesses,
his sister and aunt, still languished in their dreadful prisons--a
French army was attempting to enter Piedmont from Dauphiny, which they
could do only through the mountain-passes; and these all the able-bodied
Waldenses and some Swiss troops, under the command of General Godin, a
Swiss officer, were engaged in defending.

"It is among the homes of the Waldenses, thus left defenceless against
any plot their popish neighbors might hatch for their destruction, that
the scene of this story is laid.

"Now, papa, will you be so kind as to read it aloud?" she concluded,
handing it to him.

"With pleasure," he said, and all having gathered around to listen, he
began.

* * * * *

"On a lovely morning in the middle of May, 1793, a young girl and a
little lad might have been seen climbing the side of a mountain
overlooking the beautiful Valley of Luserna. They were Lucia and Henri
Vittoria, children of a brave Waldensian soldier then serving in the
army of his king, against the French, with whom their country was at
war.

"Lucia had a sweet, innocent face, lighted up by a pair of large, soft,
dark eyes, and was altogether very fair to look upon. Her lithe, slender
figure bounded from rock to rock with movements as graceful and almost
as swift as those of a young gazelle