Lizzie laughed.

"Oh, pshaw! of course you won't. Lizzie Heartwell, you are too
conscientious; but Helen, you will, won't you?"

"Yes, if you will hold it open for me, too. I am not at all prepared
in the lesson."

"Here, Leah," continued Bertha, laughing, and winking her roguish
eyes at Lizzie, "how much do you know of the verb aimer?"

"More than I wish I did," was the laconic reply of the beautiful
Jewess.

"I suppose so, judging from what I saw on last Saturday evening. But
here we are at the lion's den, and our levity had better subside."

"Bon jour, madame!"

"Bon jour, mesdemoiselles."

And the door was closed.

At this same hour, in the large, hollow square fronting the Citadel
Tower in the upper part of the Queen City, many platoons of young
men, dressed in the gray military suits of the cadets, were
drilling, drilling, drilling, according to custom, as a part of
their daily school routine.

A passer-by would have stopped for a moment, and watched with