, almost speechless with surprise and alarm
at this outrageous conduct, had been quite incapable of interfering; but
this increased violence on the part of the widow seemed to restore her
to herself, and angrily addressing the woman she said:

"What is the meaning of this improper behaviour? Are you out of your
senses? Has grief turned your brain? Good woman, I pity you! But let us
pass on; you are mistaken."

"Mistaken!" repeated the woman, with a bitter smile. "Me mistaken! No,
no, there is no mistake! Just look at her pale, guilty looks! Hark how
her very teeth rattle in her head! Ah, she knows well enough there is
no mistake! Ah, you may hold your wicked tongue if you like, but
justice will find a way to make you speak. You shall go with me before
the mayor; do you hear? Oh, it is not worth while resisting! I have good
strong wrists; I can hold you. And sooner than you should escape I would
carry you every step of the way."

"You good-for-nothing, insolent woman! How dare you presume to speak in
this way to my dear friend and sister?"

"Your sister, Mlle. Clara! Believe me, it is you who are deceived--it is
you who have lost your senses," bawled the enraged milk-woman, in a
loud, coarse voice. "Your sister! A likely story a girl out of the
streets, who was the companion of the very lowest wretches in the worst
part of the Cite, should be a sister of yours!"

At these words the assembled labourers, who naturally enough took that
part in the affair which concerned a person of their own class, and who
really sympathised with the bereaved milk-woman, gave utterance to deep,
threatening words, in which the name of Fleur-de-Marie was angrily
mingled. The three children, hearing their mother speaking in a loud
tone, and fearing they knew not what, ran to her, and, clinging to her
dress, burst out into a loud fit of weeping. The sight of these poor
little fatherless things, dressed also in deep mourning, increased the
pity of the spectators for the unfortunate widow, while it redoubled
their indignation against Fleur-de-Marie; while Clara, completely
frightened by these demonstrations of approaching violence, exclaimed,
in an agitated tone, to a group of farm labourers:

"Take this woman off the premises directly! Do you not perceive grief
has driven her out of her senses? Marie! dear Marie! never mind what she
says. She is mad, poor creature, and knows not what she does!"

The poor Goualeuse, pale, exhausted, and al