ever have left her apartment. She had been frightened out of her
senses by some men _en blouse_ who had made their way into her rooms and
had carried off her pistol and a little Turkish dagger. Victor's theft
of his own wages had upset her. She had insisted upon setting out.
Hermione had got post-horses somehow: Hermione ought never to have let
her come away.

About three in the morning we reached a larger village than we had
hitherto passed. The inhabitants had been apprised of the events in the
Rue Neuve des Capucines before the ministry of the Affaires Etrangeres,
and the revolutionary element had increased in audacity. A crowd of
turbulent-looking working-men dressed in blouses, armed with muskets,
old sabres and all kinds of miscellaneous weapons, stopped our way. Some
seized the head of the old horse, some gathered round the cart and
lifted lanterns into the faces of the ladies. The French workman is a
much more athletic man than the French soldier. I own to a sensation of
deadly terror for a moment when I saw the ladies in the midst of a
lawless rabble whose brawny arms were bared as if prepared for butchery
of any kind. Far off, too, a low rattle of distant musketry warned us
that the tumult in Paris was renewed.

"Mourir pour la Patrie" appeared to come from every throat, and many of
the crowd were the worse for liquor. Indeed, these patriots had
rendezvoused at a cabaret at the entrance of the village, and swarmed
from its tables to intercept us. The ladies, they insisted, must alight
and be examined. Mammy Chris was drawn out of the cart, looking as if
her face had been rubbed in ashes: Mrs. Leare was nervously excited,
Hermione went up to her, supported her and drew her bag of diamonds out
of her hand. I took Claribel in my arms.

"Vos passeports," they demanded.

"Here are our American passports," said Hermione: "we are Americans."

"Yes, Americans, republicans!" cried Mrs. Leare: "we fraternize with all
republicans in France."

"Aristos," said a man between his teeth, glancing at her dress and at
that of Hermione.

"What does he say?" cried Mrs. Leare, who did not catch the word.

"Hush, mother!" said Hermione.

"But what did he say?" she shrieked. "Tell me at once: do not keep it
from me."

Hermione replied (unwilling to use the word "aristocrat") by an American
idiom: "He said we belonged to the Upper Ten."

"But we don't! Oh, Hermie, your father belongs to a good family in
Maryland, but _m