The babe was sleeping peacefully in the cradle; two or three of the other little ones, weary with their sportive play, had been laid in their cribs.  Henric and Lewis, two lovely boys of five and six years old, having promised to be very good, if allowed to sit up till their father’s return, were watching their mother, who was employed in roasting a fine fat quail which their cousin, Lalotte, who had arrived at the discreet age of fourteen, was basting, and spinning the string by which it was suspended before the fire.

“Mother,” said Henric, “if my father does not come home very soon, that quail will be done too much.”

“What then?” asked Lalotte.

“I was thinking, cousin Lalotte, that it would be a pity for it to be spoiled, after you and mother have taken so much pains in cooking it; and it smells so very good.”

“Oh, fie! you greedy child; you want to eat the bird that is cooking for your father’s supper,” said Lalotte.  “If I were my aunt, I would send you to bed only for thinking of such a thing.”

“You are not the mistress—­you are not the mistress!” cried the sturdy rebel Henric; “and I shall not go to bed at your desire.”

“But you shall go to bed, young sir, if your cousin Lalotte tells you so to do,” said his father, who had entered during the dispute.

“Alack!” cried Henric turning to his little brother, “if we had only been patient, Lewis, we should have tasted the nice quail, and heard all our father’s news into the bargain.”

“There now, see what you have lost by being naughty children,” cried Lalotte, as she led the offenders into their little bedroom.

“Thy father’s news is not for thy young ears, my boys,” murmured William Tell, as the door closed after the unconscious children.

“There is a sadness in thy voice and trouble on thy brow,” said the anxious wife of Tell, looking earnestly in his face.  “Wilt thou not trust me with the cause of thy care?”

“Annette,” replied Tell, “thou hast been a good and faithful wife to me—­yea, and a prudent counsellor and friend in the time of need.  Why, then, should I do a thing and conceal it from thee, my well-beloved?”

“What is it thou hast done, my husband?”

“That for which thou wilt blame me, perchance.”

“Nay, say not so; thou art a good man.”

“Thou knowest, my loving wife, the sad state of slavery to which this unhappy country of Switzerland is reduced by the unlawful oppression of our foreign rulers,” said Tell.

“I do,” she replied; “but what have peasants to do with matters so much above them?”

“Much!” returned Tell.  “If the good laws made by the worthies of the olden time, for the comfort and protection of all ranks of people, be set at naught by strangers, and all the ancient institutions, which were the pride and the glory of our land, be overthrown, by those to whom we owe neither the love of children, nor the allegiance of subjects, then, methinks, good wife, it becomes the duty of peasants to stand forth in defence of their rights.  I have engaged myself, with three-and-thirty of my valiant countrymen, who met this night on the little promontory of land that juts into a lonely angle of the Lake, to concert with them means for the deliverance of my country.”