rge with her work in her hand was

accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a

Missionarythere were many like hersuch as the world will do

well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted

worthless things, but, the mechanical work was a mechanical

substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws

and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the

stomachs would have been more famine-pinched.

But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And

as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went

quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had

spoken with, and left behind.

Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with

admiration. “A great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a grand

woman, a frightfully grand woman!”

Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church

bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace

Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness

encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely,

when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy

steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon;

when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched

voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty,

Freedom