and repeated the whisper aloud - "a message from the governor, your Honor!"

And up the aisle trudged the children, while a strange silence settled over the great throng; and in open contempt of court, they climbed up to the judge and presented their credentials, all talking while the bewildered official read the message. A smile dawned on his stern face. which echoed in silence from the crowd, if such things can be, while he wiped his glasses.

"Suspend for five minutes," he said to the lawyer who had been speaking. The lawyer suspended willingly, and his unchanging gaze fixed on the children, kept the eyes of every juror riveted there. With the children by his side, the judge examined a record handed up by the clerk.

"And did the governor send you to me with the note?" he asked as he turned the pages.

་

"Yes, sir," said Sunshine. "And he laughed, too." "Oh, he laughed, did he?" The judge laughed, too. "I see, I see." And then he read the record, "twenty years for robbery'! And he was a boy when it occurred!" He shook his head. "Yes, the sentence was too severe, too severe, when his youth is considered." His pen swept across the governor's note a few times, he smiled grimly, a path opened up through the throng, and Sunshine, Moonbeam, and Starlight fading from the scene, left Justice at work in the chill and gloom. The State lost its case when the counsel for the defense resumed with the words: "Children like those, my friends, await their father's home-coming this Christmas eve."

But they knew nothing of this. Thirty minutes after

leaving the governor's room they entered stormily, gleefully, and planted their victorious colors over the citadel and its vanquished custodian. He learned their story, in amazement, and looked with comic gravity on their flushed faces.

"The republican form of government is a failure," he said at length. "The infantry has usurped the executive and suspended the judiciary!"

The

"And may we tell Shadow he is free?" asked Sunshine. "Yes; let freedom be his Christmas present." child's eyes swam in softer light.

"Write it down for me, please!" Again she handed him the pen, this time point foremost, the little hand trembling with excitement. And taking his pen, the chief executive wrote this, the strangest, sweetest, gentlest public document that ever issued from Alabama's Capitol :

"Dear Sunshine: I have looked into the case of your friend, Shadow, from Crenshaw County, and am inclined to think that his sentence is too severe. His term is twenty years from September 23, 1893. I have about made up my mind to cut his sentence to less than one third. You can let Shadow know this, and save this letter to show, if needed. He had three mighty nice girls to beg for him, and, you see, I am giving him off more than four years for each girl.

"Your friend,

"The Governor."

Late that night Sunshine's father succeeded in getting connection by telephone with Wetumpka, and Shadow was brought into the superintendent's office.

"Do you know who this is, Shadow?" The child's voice annihilated space as it had annihilated opposition. "Mis' Sunshine!"

"Well, Shadow, the governor says you will be free in the morning, and I am so glad."

Back over the wires came a great voice shouting. It was the wordless expression of a soul whose chains had been broken asunder, and to whom the whole beautiful world came back as a Christmas gift! Was there ever such a gift! One other sound came to the listening child the sound of a falling telephone receiver. Sunshine turned away with her eyes full of tears. The city clock rang out clearly through the night upon the first stroke of twelve. Clapping her hands, she cried aloud : "It is Christmas! Shadow is free!"

HORATIUS

BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

I

LARS PORSENA of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine,

Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine.

IV

There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who always by Lars Porsena

Both morn and evening stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty

Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore.

V

And with one voice the Thirty
Have their glad answer given:
"Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena;
Go forth, beloved of Heaven;
Go, and return in glory

To Clusium's royal dome;

And hang round Nurscia's altars

The golden shields of Rome."

VI

And now hath every city

Sent up her tale of men;

The foot are fourscore thousand,
The horse are thousands ten: