be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this
little citizen here. For, I am not a bad
witness."

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with
each other in their fervent protestations that
she was the most admirable and marvellous
of witnesses. The little citizen, not to
be outdone, declared her to be a celestial
witness.

"He must take his chance," said Madame
Defarge. "No; I cannot spare him! You are
engaged at three o'clock; you are going to see
the batch, of to-day executed—You?"

The question was addressed to the wood-
sawyer, who hurriedly replied in the affirmative:
seizing the occasion to add that he was the most
ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in
effect the most desolate of Republicans, if
anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure
of smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation
of the droll national barber. He was so
very demonstrative herein, that he might have
been suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes
that looked contemptuously at him out of
Madame Defarge's head) of having his small
individual fears for his own personal safety,
every hour in the day.

"I," said madame, "am equally engaged at
the same place. After it is over—say at eight
to-night—come you to me, in Saint Antoine,
and we will give information against these people
at my Section."

The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and
flattered to attend the citizeness. The
citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed,
evaded her glance as a small dog would have
done, retreated among his wood, and hid his
confusion over the handle of his saw.

Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and
The Vengeance a little nearer to the door, and
there expounded her further views to them
thus:

"She will now be at home, awaiting the
moment of his death. She will be mourning and
grieving. She will be in a state of mind to
impeach the justice of the Republic. She will be
full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to
her."

"What an admirable woman; what an
adorable woman!" exclaimed Jacques Three,
rapturously. "Ah, my cherished!" cried The
Vengeance; and embraced her.

"Take you my knitting," said Madame
Defarge, placing it in her lieutenant's hands,
"and have it ready for me in my usual seat.
Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight,
for there will probably be a greater concourse
than usual, to-day."

"I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,"
said The Vengeance, with alacrity, and kissing
her cheek. "You will not be late?"

"I shall be there before the commencement."

"And before the tumbrils arrive.  Be sure
you are there, my soul," said The Vengeance,
calling after her, for she had already turned into
the street, "before the tumbrils arrive!"

Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand,
to imply that she heard, and might be relied
upon to arrive in good time, and so went
through the mud, and round the corner of
the prison wall. The Vengeange and the Juryman,
looking after her as she walked away, were
highly appreciative of her fine figure, and her
superb moral endowments.

There were many women at that time, upon
whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand;
but, there was not one among them more to be
dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking
her way along the streets. Of a strong and
fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness,
of great determination, of that kind of beauty
which not only seems to impart to its possessor
firmness and animosity, but to strike into others
an instinctive recognition of those qualities;
the troubled time would have heaved her up,
under any circumstances. But, imbued from her
childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and
an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had
developed her into a tigress. She was
absolutely without pity. If she had ever had
the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of
her.

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man
was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she
saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her,
that his wife was to be made a widow and his
daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment,
because they were her natural enemies and
her prey, and as such had no right to live. To
appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no
sense of pity, even for herself. If she had been
laid low in the streets, in any of the many
encounters in which she had been engaged, she
would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had
been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she
have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce
desire to change places with the man who sent
her there.

Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under
her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was a
becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way,
and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse
red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a
loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was
a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking
with the confident tread of such a
character, and with the supple freedom of a
woman who had habitually walked in her
girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown
sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along
the streets.

Now, when the journey of the travelling
coach, at that very moment waiting for the
completion of its load, had been planned out last
night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it
had much engaged Mr. Lorry's attention. It
was not merely desirable to avoid overloading
the coach, but it was of the highest importance
that the time occupied in examining it, and its
passengers, should be reduced to the utmost;
since their escape might depend on the saving
of only a few seconds here and there. Finally,
he had proposed, after anxious consideration,
that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty