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By Root 1095 0

it is you! To have gone to fight like that! But why? It is horrible. For four months I have been dead. Oh, how naughty it is to have been in that battle! What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you won’t do it again. Just now, when they came to tell us to come, I thought again I should die, but it was of joy. I was so sad! I did not take time to dress myself; I must look like a fright. What will your relatives say of me, to see me with a collar all wrinkled? But speak now! You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé. Your shoulder, that was terrible. They told me they could put their fist into it. And then they have cut your flesh with scissors. That is frightful. I have cried; I have no eyes left. It is strange that anybody can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kind appearance. Don’t disturb yourself; don’t rest on your elbow; take care, you will hurt yourself. Oh, how happy I am! So our trouble is all over! I am very silly. I wanted to say something to you that I have forgotten completely. Do you love me still? We live in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. There is no garden. I have been making lint all the time. Here, monsieur, look, it is your fault, my fingers are callous.”

“Angel!” said Marius.

Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No other word would resist the pitiless use which lovers make of it.

Then, as there were spectators, they stopped, and did not say another word, contenting themselves with touching each other’s hands very gently.

M. Gillenormand turned towards all those who were in the room and cried:

“Why don’t you talk loud, the rest of you? Make a noise, behind the scenes. Come, a little uproar, the devil! so that these children can chatter at their ease.”

And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them very low:

“Say tu. Don’t let us bother you.”

Aunt Gillenormand witnessed with amazement this irruption of light into her aged interior. This amazement was not at all aggressive; it was not the least in the world the scandalised and envious look of an owl upon two ringdoves; it was the dull eye of a poor innocent girl of fifty-seven; it was incomplete life beholding that triumph, love.

“Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,” said her father to her, “I told you plainly that this would happen.”

He remained silent a moment and added:

“Behold the happiness of others.”

Then he turned towards Cosette:

“How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She is a Greuze.gx You are going to have her all alone to yourself then, rascal! Ah! my rogue, you have a narrow escape from me, you are lucky, if I were not fifteen years too old, we would cross swords for who should have her.

“She is exquisite, this darling. She is a masterpiece, this Cosette. She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will be only a baroness, that is stooping,she was born a marchioness. Hasn’t she lashes for you? My children, fix it well in your noddles that you are in the right of it. Love one another. Be foolish about it. Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God. Adore each other. Only,” added he, suddenly darkening, ”what a misfortune! This is what I am thinking of! More than half of what I have is in annuity; as long as I live, it’s all well enough, but after my death, twenty years from now, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou. Your beautiful white hands, Madame the Baroness, will do the devil the honour to pull him by the tail.“gy

“Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent has six hundred thousand francs.”

It was Jean Valjean’s voice.

He had not yet uttered a word, nobody seemed even to remember that he was there, and he stood erect and motionless behind all these happy people.

“How is Mademoiselle Euphrasie in question?” asked the grandfather, startled.

“That is me,” answered Cosette.

“Six hundred thousand francs!” resumed M. Gillenormand.

“Less fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, perhaps,” said Jean Valjean.

And he laid on the table the package which Aunt Gillenormand had taken for a book.

Jean Valjean opened the package himself; it was