n were perceptible
beneath this hardihood. Effrontery is a disgrace.

Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room,
and, so to speak, flit with the movements of a bird which is frightened
by the daylight, or which has broken its wing. One felt that under other
conditions of education and destiny, the gay and over-free mien of this
young girl might have turned out sweet and charming. Never, even among
animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That
is only to be seen among men.

Marius reflected, and allowed her to have her way.

She approached the table.

"Ah!" said she, "books!"

A flash pierced her glassy eye. She resumed, and her accent expressed
the happiness which she felt in boasting of something, to which no human
creature is insensible:--

"I know how to read, I do!"

She eagerly seized a book which lay open on the table, and read with
tolerable fluency:--

"--General Bauduin received orders to take the chateau of Hougomont
which stands in the middle of the plain of Waterloo, with five
battalions of his brigade."

She paused.

"Ah! Waterloo! I know about that. It was a battle long ago. My father
was there. My father has served in the armies. We are fine Bonapartists
in our house, that we are! Waterloo was against the English."

She laid down the book, caught up a pen, and exclaimed:--

"And I know how to write, too!"

She dipped her pen in the ink, and turning to Marius:--

"Do you want to see? Look here, I'm going to write a word to show you."

And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper,
which lay in the middle of the table: "The bobbies are here."

Then throwing down the pen:--

"There are no faults of orthography. You can look. We have received an
education, my sister and I. We have not always been as we are now. We
were not made--"

Here she paused, fixed her dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing,
saying, with an intonation which contained every form of anguish,
stifled by every form of cynicism:--

"Bah!"

And she began to hum these words to a gay air:--

"J'ai faim, mon pere." I am hungry, father.
Pas de fricot. I have no food.
J'ai froid, ma mere. I am cold, mother.
Pas de tricot. I have no clothes.
Grelotte, Lolotte!
Lolotte! Shiver,
Sanglote, Sob,