counteracted all the good which he might have received from that of
his more amiable sister.

About the end of May, there was to be, in a village not far distant,
a match at rifle-shooting. It was a public fete, at which all the
people in the neighborhood assembled.

On the morning of this day, Mark had answered his father with great
insolence, at which he was so much enraged, that he punished him
severely, and forbad him, besides, to go to the fete. The father
went thither himself, and Mark, after a moment's indecision,
determined not to heed the command he had received, but to follow him
to the shooting-match.

He therefore took advantage of his mother's absence, who, according
to her usual custom, was gone to gossip with some of her neighbors,
and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Josephine, he hastened over
fields and hedges, to the scene of the match.

"What is this?" cried he, picking up a little pamphlet, with a cover
of colored paper, which was lying on the path near the opening in the
hedge. "Oh! it is one of those tracts they leave about everywhere; it
will do very well to load my gun;" and so saying, he put the tract
into his pocket, and ran on as before.

But when he approached the village where they were shooting,
dancing, playing, and making a great noise, he suddenly stopped, for
he recollected that if he should meet with his father, who was there,
he would certainly beat him, and send him home again, in presence of
all the people who might be assembled; besides, his brother Peter was