. "What, after eight long
days' absence you cannot give me your attention even for five minutes?
Not thinking! That would be bad enough; but that is not it, Marie. And I
tell you what, it is my belief you are too proud to own so humble a
friend as myself."

Fleur-de-Marie made no answer, but her whole countenance assumed the
pallor of death.

A woman, dressed as a widow, and in deep mourning, had just caught sight
of her, and uttered a cry of rage and horror which seemed to freeze the
poor girl's blood. This woman was the person who supplied the Goualeuse
with her daily milk, during the time the latter dwelt with the ogress at
the _tapis-franc_.

The scene which ensued took place in one of the yards belonging to the
farm, in the presence of all the labourers, both male and female, who
chanced just then to be returning to the house to take their mid-day
meal. Beneath a shed stood a small cart, drawn by a donkey, and
containing the few household possessions of the widow; a boy of about
twelve years of age, aided by two younger children, was beginning to
unload the vehicle. The milk-woman herself was a woman of about forty
years of age, her countenance coarse, masculine, and expressive of
great resolution. She was, as we before stated, attired in the deepest
mourning, and her eyelids looked red and inflamed with recent weeping.
Her first impulse at the sight of the Goualeuse had been terror; but
quickly did that feeling change into grief and rage, while the most
violent anger contracted her features. Rapidly darting towards the
unhappy girl, she seized her by the arm, and, presenting her to the gaze
of the farm servants, she exclaimed:

"Here is a creature who is acquainted with the assassin of my poor
husband! I have seen her more than twenty times speaking to the ruffian
when I was selling my milk at the corner of the Rue de la
Vieille-Draperie; she used to come to buy a ha'porth every morning. She
knows well enough who it was struck the blow that made me a widow, and
my poor children fatherless. 'Birds of a feather flock together,' and
such loose characters as she is are sure to be linked in with thieves
and murderers. Oh, you shall not escape me, you abandoned wretch!" cried
the milk-woman, who had now lashed herself into a perfect fury, and who,
seeing poor Fleur-de-Marie confused and terror-stricken at this sudden
attack, endeavouring to escape from it by flight, grasped her fiercely
by the other arm also. Clara