grottos; there was a magnificent, dishevelled obscurity
falling like a veil over all. Paphos had been made over into Eden. It is
impossible to say what element of repentance had rendered this retreat
wholesome. This flower-girl now offered her blossom to the soul. This
coquettish garden, formerly decidedly compromised, had returned to
virginity and modesty. A justice assisted by a gardener, a goodman who
thought that he was a continuation of Lamoignon, and another goodman who
thought that he was a continuation of Lenotre, had turned it about, cut,
ruffled, decked, moulded it to gallantry; nature had taken possession of
it once more, had filled it with shade, and had arranged it for love.

There was, also, in this solitude, a heart which was quite ready. Love
had only to show himself; he had here a temple composed of verdure,
grass, moss, the sight of birds, tender shadows, agitated branches, and
a soul made of sweetness, of faith, of candor, of hope, of aspiration,
and of illusion.

Cosette had left the convent when she was still almost a child; she was
a little more than fourteen, and she was at the "ungrateful age"; we
have already said, that with the exception of her eyes, she was homely
rather than pretty; she had no ungraceful feature, but she was awkward,
thin, timid and bold at once, a grown-up little girl, in short.

Her education was finished, that is to say, she has been taught
religion, and even and above all, devotion; then "history," that is to
say the thing that bears that name in convents, geography, grammar,
the participles, the kings of France, a little music, a little drawing,
etc.; but in all other respects she was utterly ignorant, which is a
great charm and a great peril. The soul of a young girl should not be
left in the dark; later on, mirages that are too abrupt and too lively
are formed there, as in a dark chamber. She should be gently and
discreetly enlightened, rather with the reflection of realities than
with their harsh and direct light. A useful and graciously austere
half-light which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls. There is
nothing but the maternal instinct, that admirable intuition composed of
the memories of the virgin and the experience of the woman, which knows
how this half-light is to be created and of what it should consist.

Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world
are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's
s