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A TALC OP TWO CITIES
(DICKENS)
By riontanye Perry
ii I OOK, brother, the basket is
L. filled. We shall have a good supper."
The speaker was a French peasant girl, whose meager, ragged attire, seemed only to accentuate her fresh loveliness. With her rosy complexion, slender rounded form and luxuriant hair, she was a type of beauty that occasionally springs from direst poverty.
The brother rose from the ground, where he had been grubbing patiently with a broken-handled knife, and glanced from the basket to his sister's glowing face.
"A good supper!" he repeated, bitterly. "A handful of poor roots dug from the ground at the park gates by hours of labor ! And while we eat them, in our miserable hut, they, at the chateau yonder, will feast upon meats and pastry from golden plates."
"But is it not better to be thankful for what we have," returned the girl, startled by his fierce voice and angry eyes, "than to be miserable because we have no more ?"
"But why should we not have more ?" exclaimed the lad, vehemently. "Why should we slave early and late, to die at last from exhaustion and hunger? Why should we have no fruits of our labor? Who made them our masters, to own us body and soul, to feast and revel while we starve? Do you never think of the contrast ? Look !"
He flung out a bony arm, a sharp finger pointing first toward the great chateau, then in the other direction.
On one side was the park, which lay about the chateau, its green acres studded with flowers and rare foliage, its
walks and drives shaded by magnificent trees.
On the other side was the country, stretching away from the walls of the chateau, in sharp contrast. Patches of poor rye and poorer peas and beans struggled for existence where bright fields of corn should have flourished. The brown, withered grass on the dreary fields told of impoverished, starving soil. There was a poor little village at the foot of the hill, with one poor street, a poor brewery, a poor fountain, and poor little huts, where hopeless people struggled for a miserable existence.
"It has always been so," said the girl, patiently, "and we must bear it as best we can. Since I married Carl, I am so happy that I don't think of it. And, oh, next week he will return !"
"I am glad you are happy," said the brother, in a softer tone; "but I tell you things will not always be as they are now. Even now, in Paris, men gather in cellars and talk of liberty. The air is full of mutterings. Some day we shall strike, together — let them beware that day !"
At that instant a sumptuous carriage rolled toward the park gates, and two richly dressed men glanced out, thru the glass doors, at the girl. A quick word to the driver, and the equipage stopped. The peasant lad stood quickly before his sister, who shrank back, terrified, as one of the occupants of the carriage stepped forward.
"We crave the company of the fair maiden," he said, with an evil smile; "will she deign to ride with us?"
The peasant's dark face whitened with helpless rage and terror. He took
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