"Yes; and if it please God, Madeleine, we shall drive hence these English who have caused so much damage to your good town of Orleans and to the poor people of France!" The Maid said this as she strapped the jambards over her buckskin hose whose waistband outlined her supple and robust shape. Her shoulders and bosom were then almost exposed. She hastened to button up her chemise, while blushing with chaste embarrassment although she was in the presence of a girl of her own age; but such was Joan's modesty, that on a similar occasion she would have blushed before her own mother! Putting on a slightly padded skin jacket that the friction with her armor had already begun to blacken, she cased her breast in her iron corselet, that Madeleine strapped on as well as she could. "May this cuirass protect you, Joan, against the enemy's swords! Alack! To have a young girl fight! To have her face such dangers!" "Oh, dear Madeleine, before leaving Vaucouleurs, I said to the Sire of Baudricourt, the seigneur who helped me to reach the Dauphin of France: 'I would prefer to remain and sew and spin near my mother; but I must fulfil the orders of the Lord.'" "What dangers you have run, my dear Joan, and still are to run in the fulfilment of your mission!" "Danger troubles me little; I place myself in the hands of God. What troubles me is the slowness I encounter in having my services availed of. These delays are fatal to Gaul--because it seems to me that my days are numbered."[70] The martial maid pronounced these last words with so sweet a melancholy that Madeleine's tears started to flow afresh. Placing back upon a table the casque that she was about to place upon her friend's head, she threw herself into her arms without uttering a word, and embraced her, sobbing, as she would have embraced her sister at the supreme hour of an eternal farewell. Dame Boucher entered at that moment precipitately and said: "Joan, Joan, the Sire of Villars and Jamet of Tilloy, two councilmen, are downstairs in the hall. They wish to speak with you immediately. Your page has just led up your horse. It seems that something unexpected has happened." "Adieu, till we meet again, my dear Madeleine," said Joan to the weeping girl. "Be comforted. My saints and the Lord will protect me, if not against wounds, at least against death until I shall have carried out the mission that they have laid upon me;" and hastily taking up her casque, her sword and the small baton that she habitually carried in her hand, the Maid descended quickly into the large hall.