the best order. She was hot and scarlet with exercise, being
perhaps too stout for the steep steps of the fortress; and in one
hand she held a handkerchief, with which from time to time she wiped
her brow. In the other hand she held one of the extremities of my
friend's property, feeling--good, careful soul!--what was the
texture of the cloth. As she did so, I could see a glance of
approbation pass across her warm features. I liked that lady's
face, in spite of her untidy hair, and felt that had she been alone
my friend would not have been injured.

On either side of her there stood a flaxen-haired maiden, with long
curls, large blue eyes, fresh red cheeks, an undefined lumpy nose,
and large good-humoured mouth. They were as like as two peas, only
that one was half an inch taller than the other; and there was no
difficulty in discovering, at a moment's glance, that they were the
children of that over-heated matron who was feeling the web of my
friend's cloth.

But the principal figure was she who held the centre place in the
group. She was tall and thin, with fierce-looking eyes, rendered
more fierce by the spectacles which she wore; with a red nose as I
said before; and about her an undescribable something which quite
convinced me that she had never known--could never know--aught of
the comforts of married life. It was she who held the scissors and
the black garments. It was she who had given that unkind cut. As I
looked at her she whisked herself quickly round from one companion
to the other, triumphing in what she had done, and ready to triumph
further in what she was about to do. I immediately conceived a deep
hatred for that Queen of the Harpies.