"What! Walking here again, citizeness?"

"Yes, citizen."

"Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not,
my little citizeness?"

"Do I say yes, mamma?" whispered little
Lucie, drawing close to her.

"Yes, dearest."

"Yes, citizen."

"Ah! But it's not my business. My work
is my business. See my saw! I call it my
Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And
off his head comes!"

The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it
into a basket.

"I call myself the Samson of the firewood
guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo;
Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now,
a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And
off its head comes. All the family!"

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets
into his basket, but it was impossible to be there
while the wood-sawyer was at work, and not
be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his
good will, she always spoke to him first, and
often gave him drink-money which he readily
received.

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes
when she had quite forgotten him in gazing at
the prison roofs and grates, and in lifting her
heart up to her husband, she would come to
herself to find him looking at her, with his knee
on his bench and his saw stopped in its work.
"But it's not my business!" he would generally
say at those times, and would briskly fall to his
sawing again.

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of
winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the hot
sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and
again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie
passed two hours of every day at this place; and
every day, on leaving it, she kissed the prison
wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned
from her father) it might be once in five or six
times: it might be twice or thrice running: it
might be, not for a week or a fortnight
together. It was enough that he could and did
see her when the chances served, and on that
possibility she would have waited out the day,
seven days a week.

These occupations brought her round to the
December month, wherein her father walked
among the terrors with a steady head. On a
lightly-snowing afternoon she arrived at the
usual corner. It was a day of some wild
rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses,
as she came along, decorated with little pikes,
and with little red caps stuck upon them; also,
with tricolored ribbons; also, with the standard
inscription (tricolored letters were the favourite),
Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, or Death!

The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was
so small, that its whole surface furnished very
indifferent space for this legend. He had got
somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who
had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate
difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed pike
and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a
window he had stationed his saw, inscribed as
his "Little Sainte Guillotine"—for the great
sharp female was by that time popularly
canonised. His shop was shut and he was not
there, which was a relief to Lucie and left her
quite alone.

But, he was not far off, for presently she
heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming
along, which filled her with fear. A moment
afterwards, and a throne of people came pouring
round the corner by the prison wall, in the
midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand in
hand with The Vengeance. There could not be
fewer than five hundred people, and they were
dancing like five thousand demons. There was
no other music than their own singing. They
danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping
a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of
teeth in unison. Men and women danced
together, women danced together, men danced
together, as hazard had brought them together.
At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps
and coarse woollen rags; but, as they filled the
place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some
ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving
mad arose among them. They advanced,
retreated, struck at one another's hands, clutched
at one another's heads, spun round alone, caught
one another and spun round in pairs, until many
of them dropped. While those were down, the
rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round
together: then the ring broke, and in separate
rings of two and four they turned and turned
until they all stopped at once, began again,
struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed
the spin, and all spun round another way.
Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the
time afresh, formed into lines the width of the
public way, and, with their heads low down and
their hands high up, swooped screaming off.
No fight could have been half so terrible as
this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen
sport—a something once innocent delivered over
to all devilry—a healthy pastime changed into a
means of angering the blood, bewildering the
senses, and steeling the heart. Such grace as
was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing
how warped and perverted all things good by
nature were become. The maidenly bosom
bared to this, the pretty almost-chil'd's head
thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing in
this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the
disjointed time.

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving
Lucie frightened find bewildered in the doorway
of the wood-sawyer's house, the feathery snow
fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it
had never been.

"O my father!" for he stood before her
when she lifted up the eyes she had momentarily
darkened with her hand; "such a cruel, bad
sight."

"I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it
many times. Don't be frightened! Not one of
them would harm you."

"I am not frightened for myself, my father.