were assembled at Paris on the occasion of the marriage of
the young Prince of Navarre to the sister of the King of France, for a
general massacre of the Huguenots, throughout the city and kingdom. On
St. Bartholomew's day the slaughter began, and lasted until many
thousand Protestants--men, women, and children--were murdered, shot
down and cut down in their houses, their churches, and in the open
street. King Charles himself, though scarcely more than a boy, was the
most brutal and blood-thirsty of all the persecutors. He stood at one
of the windows of his palace, and fired at the poor, shrieking,
struggling people, as fast as his carbine could be loaded. Many a
brave Christian father and noble youth were laid low by his cruel shot,
in those dreadful streets and courts, where the hard stones steamed
with warm blood as meadows in May mornings smoke with ascending dews,
and where down the very gutters, instead of swift currents of summer
rain, ran sluggish red rivulets, slowly flowing from the bodies of the
dead and dying, piled on either side. But though that bad and mad
young king cruelly meant every shot, and though every drop of blood he
shed was a guilt-stain on his soul, and every dying groan he caused was
to ring on his ear and pierce his wicked heart till he died, yet, after
all, he harmed only the poor, perishing bodies of his victims; their
deathless souls he but early set free from mortal bondage, and hastened
home to God.

But to return to Philip Sidney. During the massacre, he took refuge
with the English resident minister, Sir Francis Walsingham, one of the
most distinguished men of the age and court of Elizabeth.

Sir Francis had a young daughter, a beautiful, sweet-tempered little
girl, in whom Philip Sidney became much interested. This child felt
very deeply for the poor Huguenot martyrs. She prayed for them
constantly, and wept for them tears of bitter anguish, that seemed to
quench the glad sparkle of her tender blue eyes, and to wash all the
rosy bloom from her soft, round cheeks.

Philip, who saw her sadness, often tried to comfort her; but her grief
and her sweet, sorrowful words always so touched his own tender heart,
that his manly voice trembled, and sometimes he bowed his beautiful
face on her head, as it lay on his breast, and wept with her silently.
And so he grew to love her; and she loved him more than all the world.

As soon as quiet was restored--a sad quiet it was--Philip Sidn