Miss Pross

“ Soon, Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. "It is under my arm," said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, "you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold you till one or other of us faints or dies!"
Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone—blinded with smoke. ”

“ Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures—found only among women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives. ”

“ A little more than a hundred years ago there lived in London (one of the two cities of this tale) a lovely girl of seventeen named Lucie Manette. Her mother had died when she was a baby, in France, and she lived alone with her old nurse, Miss Pross, a homely, grim guardian with hair as red as her face, who called Lucie "ladybird" and loved her very much. Miss Pross was sharp of speech and was always snapping people up as if she would bite their heads off, but, though she seldom chose to show it, she was the kindest, truest, most unselfish person in the world. ”

“ Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in the garden! ”

“ I am busy. I am an official.”
“My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tear-fraught eyes, “that had the makings in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his—”
“I said so!” cried her brother, interrupting. “I knew it. You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on!”
“The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!” cried Miss Pross. ”

“ He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mind—we all make such arrangements, more or less—he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson’s.
“There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,” said Miss Pross ”

“ Next day, when Miss Prosser announced that she would dine out in the evening, and had made arrangements for Grant to sit in the schoolroom with her pupil, Blanche looked upon the circumstance as the most delightful opportunity for carrying out her plan. Her governess very rarely made engagements for the evening, or left her pupil to her own devices; so it seemed to Blanche the rarest piece of good luck that she should be going out to-night. She knew very well that Miss Prosser would not give her sanction to a visit to the wretched little girl ”

“ You are a very good child, my dear. There is no reason to reproach yourself as you do, I assure you. Only this morning, in my report to your father, I stated that I was pleased with your progress, and Signor Lesbini was expressing his satisfaction with you, also," added Miss Prosser, who, however, felt rather disconcerted by the new rôle she had to play in 291taking her pupil's part against herself. It was so unlike the bright, careless Blanche of a few months ago ”

“ A Narlonian of giant proportions, his three supple feelers ringed with bands of precious metals, Pross Mere-Mer clothed the sinuous length of teeba, which terminated in the round body and twin steps with pieces of pliable lirum. The cold eye of the middle feeler turned this way and that as Pross Mere-Mer expressed his discontent with things as they were. The other two feelers sucked, with their sucker-like mouths, at the metal tubes which brought the energy from distant Rano for his morning meal. “What is this, Ra-Kooma?” he demanded of his chief adviser, who had sought an audience with him. ”

“ The Efranian spun toward the screenophotoscope with a convulsive twist of his teeba – and suddenly blue fire of dread flared in his jell. His beloved Zeera was framed in the reflector, her feelers quivering with excitement, and her jell tinged the hue of fear.
“Fo-Peta, the Pross Lords – they have rebelled, and are sweeping every thing before them. Pross Mere-Mer is their leader. ”

“ Do not move!” Out of a maze of giant instruments floated Pross Mere-Mer, his jell colored vindictively, his slimy purple eye aglow with satisfaction. “Again Pross Mere-Mer is in control!”
Fo-Peta seemed stunned. The virgo stared at the tall Narlonian fearfully. Only Kama-Loo was unperturbed.
“You may be in control – but I know you won’t harm me, because you can’t get along without my knowledge. Then too, you forget Elo Hava.” The keen eye of the astronomer had seen something that had escaped the others ”

“ Many years ago were the shackles forged for our limbs and many of you may not know the history of those days; but we know, we professional revolutionists, and we tell you that only as you stand together as one, make common cause with the oppressed of all the satellites, can you hope to prevail against your taskmasters.” His feelers glowed militantly. “We have overthrown our guards, captured the Intelligence Towers, but soon Pross Mere-Mer and the other Pross Lords under him, will hurl against us the concentrated might of Narlone. ”

“ Pross Mere-Mer was handicapped by difficult absorption, his gills blowing almost continuously. One of his feelers had the middle ruler by the upper teeba, just under the central jell, preventing his speaking mouth from giving more than a half-stifled shout. Fo-Peta did not hesitate. Too much was at stake. At any moment some attendant might blunder on the scene. He darted on Tal-Ton from one side and swung up the heavy disk. The middle ruler collapsed under the same terrible blow that had slain the guard. Pross Mere-Mer turned on Fo-Peta with furious feelers. ”

“ Reluctantly Zeera darted upward, her eye on the space ships. And at that instant Elo Hava released a thing of ruptured feelers and punctured, lacerated jell – Pross Mere-Mer – dead.
Resolutely Fo-Peta faced the giant. He could not hope to defeat him – but he must try. In a fleeting instant his mind noted many things – Kama-Loo darting toward what appeared to be a bank of weapons controls... Zeera almost half way to the ships and rising rapidly... The monster horde gathering about the craft’s hull, to the left of the vision plate above them... ”

“ What would we do for metallic vapors to absorb, energy tubes to sustain life?”
“That is true.” Suddenly Fo-Peta’s jell glowed with exultation. “The dimensional car!” he exclaimed. They stared at him with motionless feelers. Fo-Peta explained what he meant. “It is the very thing we need. Supplied with what we must have, in a moment we are there.”
“And how are you going to obtain the car?” Pross Mere-Mer’s jell showed the irony of orange. With a twist of the teeba he floated into a corner and closed his sardonic eye. ”

“ He had looked away thru politeness, but his interest became genuine in an instant. Back and forth he drifted above the apparatus, studying the device in the main like that in the dimension cars of Hade, but indicative of far higher intelligence and of far greater skill in things mechanical.
Zeera began talking, eagerly, and disjointedly, virgo-like, glad for an audience.
“We are not safe here, Fo-Peta! Elo Hava – if it is the god – will follow. The Pross Lords are back on Narlone, but Elo Hava and his horde – that is another matter.” ”

“ I've just met Miss Strong, and she told me. She's moved up with us, and there's a new mistress for Vb. Haven't seen her yet, but they say she's nice, though I'd rather stick to Miss Strong, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know," temporized Ingred, screwing her mouth into a button.
"Oh, of course! I forgot! You're not a 'Strong' enthusiast—never were! Now I like her!"
"It's easy enough to like anybody who favors you. Miss Strong was always down on me somehow, and I'd rather have tried my luck with a fresh teacher. I wonder if Miss Burd would put me in Vb. ”

“ When one parts from a mistress one would be just as glad, until one has begun to forget her, that she should not become the property of three or four potential protectors whom one has in one’s mind’s eye, of whom, that is to say, one is jealous: all those whom one does not so picture count for nothing. Now frequent demands for money from a cast-off mistress no more give one a complete idea of her life than charts shewing a high temperature would of her illness. ”

“ We had also—a discreet feminine attention like the refreshments that are brought to us in the studio, between sittings, by a painter’s mistress—a courteous supplement to those which her husband paid us professionally, a visit from Mme. Cottard. She came to offer us her “waiting-woman”, or, if we preferred the services of a man, she would “scour the country” for one, and, best of all, on our declining, said that she did hope this was not just a “put-off” on our part, a word which in her world signifies a false pretext for not accepting an invitation. ”

“ They are rare amongst us. But you – why have you sought us out?”
Then Fo-Peta told them of the conditions in the tul-mills and the gren-mines, of the certain death from attrition – the hideous nager – which assailed those condemned to labor long years in the Ethor regions. He told of his life as a professional revolutionist, of his many attempts to organize the toilers to overthrow Narlone rule of Pross Lords; of his arrest, condemnation, leadership of the successful uprising on Bar-Zee ”

“ His mistress had not waited for him to accompany her; on her way to her dressing-room she turned round and:
“Do they do those tricks with women too, those nice little hands?” she flung to the dancer from the back of the stage, in an artificially melodious tone of girlish innocence. “You look just like one yourself, I’m sure I could have a wonderful time with you and a girl I know.”
“There’s no rule against smoking that I know of; if people aren’t well, they have only to stay at home,” said the journalist.
The dancer smiled mysteriously back at the actress. ”

“ Now whether the mistress be a young blood's (such as Saint-Loup) or a young workman's (electricians, for instance, must now be included in our truest order of Chivalry) her lover has too much admiration and respect for her not to extend them also to what she herself respects and admires; and for him the scale of values is thereby reversed. Her sex alone makes her weak; she suffers from nervous troubles, inexplicable things which in a man, or even in another woman—a woman whose nephew or cousin he was—would bring a smile to the lips of this stalwart young man. ”

“ Many an antiquated Miss, proud of past conquests, and unable yet to believe that her career of triumph was, indeed, ended, would turn up an envious nose, and utter a sharp sneer at the forwardness and hoyden mirth of that pert Mistress Agnes, or at the coldness and inanimate smile of the fair heiress; but the sneer, even were it the sneer of a duke's or a minister's daughter, fell harmless, or yet worse, drew forth a prompt defence of the unjustly assailed beauty. ”

“ And even this is spared to the actress, since her directions are more often received from the stage manager or manager than from a woman star. True, her life is hard, she has no home comforts; but, then, she has no heavy duties to perform, no housework, bed-making, sweeping, dish-washing, or clothes-washing, and when her work is done, she is her own mistress. She goes and comes at her own will; she has time for self-improvement, but best of all she has something to look forward to. That is a great advantage over girls of other occupations, who have such a small chance of advancement. ”

“ No actress can answer all the girls who write to her,—no more can I, and that disturbs me, because I like girls and I hate to disappoint them.
But now for my proposition. Why not become a lovely composite girl, my friend, Miss Hope Legion, and let me try to speak to her my word of warning, of advice, of remonstrance? If she doubts, let me prove my assertions by incident, and if she grows vexed, let me try to win her to laughter with the absurdities,—that are so funny in their telling, though so painful in their happening. ”

“ The mistress of the Fourth Form had a striking personality which could not fail to influence those with whom she came into contact—tall, dark, and handsome, she gave the impression of much strength of will, keen wits, and great abilities. She was a very clever teacher, who liked to push on quick pupils, but was a little ruthless towards stupid girls. She knew how to make the dullest subject entertaining, [63] and expected a high average of work, having no toleration for laziness, and a contempt for incompetence. No girl ever dreamt of whispering or idling during Miss Harper's classes. ”

“ It was that of the woman who in all companies of men and women held her fame so fair that, whatever their reputations for high deeds or ignoble vices, none was so great as she. In that great court where virtue was a gem of so little worth that it was kept hid and secret, Mistress Barbara had worn it openly, broadly, high upon her brow, with a rare pride, as the most priceless of her inestimable jewels. ”