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By Root 1268 0

whispering to her husband and counting some money, Eponine and Azelma were playing with the cat, the travellers were eating or drinking or singing, nobody was looking at her. She had not a moment to lose. She crept out from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that nobody was watching her, then darted quickly to the doll, and seized it. An instant afterwards she was at her place, seated, motionless, only turned in such a way as to keep the doll that she held in her arms in the shadow. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare to her that it had all the violence of rapture.

Nobody had seen her, except the traveller, who was slowly eating his meagre supper.

This joy lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour.

But in spite of Cosette’s precautions, she did not perceive that one of the doll’s feet stuck out, and that the fire of the fireplace lighted it up very vividly. This rosy and luminous foot which protruded from the shadow suddenly caught Azelma’s eye, and she said to Eponine: “Oh! sister!”

The two little girls stopped, stupefied; Cosette had dared to take the doll.

Eponine got up, and without letting go of the cat, went to her mother and began to pull at her skirt.

“Let me alone,” said the mother; “what do you want?”

“Mother,” said the child, “look there.”

And she pointed at Cosette.

Cosette, wholly absorbed in the ecstasy of her possession, saw and heard nothing else.

The face of the Thénardiess assumed the peculiar expression which is composed of the terrible mingled with the commonplace and which has given this class of women the name of shrews.

This time wounded pride exasperated her anger still more. Cosette had transgressed all social limits. Cosette had laid her hands upon the doll of “those young ladies.” A czarina who had seen a moujik trying on the grand cordon of her imperial son would have had the same expression.

She cried with a voice harsh with indignation:

“Cosette!”

Cosette shuddered as if the earth had quaked beneath her. She turned around.

“Cosette!” repeated the Thénardiess.

Cosette took the doll and placed it gently on the floor with a kind of veneration mingled with despair. Then, without taking away her eyes, she joined her hands, and, what is frightful to tell in a child of that age, she wrung them; then, what none of the emotions of the day had drawn from her, neither the run in the wood, nor the weight of the bucket of water, nor the loss of the money, nor the sight of the cowhide, nor even the stern words she had heard from the Thénardiess, she burst into tears. She sobbed.

Meanwhile the traveller arose.

“What is the matter?” said he to the Thénardiess.

“Don’t you see?” said the Thénardiess, pointing with her finger to the corpus delicti lying at Cosette’s feet.

“Well, what is that?” said the man.

“That beggar,” answered the Thénardiess, “has dared to touch the children’s doll.”

“All this noise about that?” said the man. “Well, what if she did play with that doll?”

“She has touched it with her dirty hands!” continued the Thénardiess, “with her horrid hands!”

Here Cosette redoubled her sobs.

“Be still!” cried the Thénardiess.

The man walked straight to the street door, opened it, and went out.

As soon as he had gone, the Thénardiess profited by his absence to give Cosette under the table a severe kick, which made the child shriek.

The door opened again, and the man reappeared, holding in his hands the fabulous doll of which we have spoken, and which had been the admiration of all the youngsters of the village since morning; he stood it up before Cosette, saying:

“Here, this is for you.”

It is probable that during the time he had been there—more than an hour—in the midst of his reverie, he had caught confused glimpses of this toy-shop, lighted up with lamps and candles so splendidly that it shone through the bar-room window like an illumination.

Cosette raised her eyes; she saw the man approach her with that doll as she would have seen the sun approach, she heard those astounding words: This is for you. She looked at him, she looked at the