course than usual, today,” “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 Vengeance 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 seems 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 c