uard with the vague inward feeling of a man who is betaking
himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object.
Cosette, who made it her law to please her father, and to whom,
moreover, all spectacles were a novelty, accepted this diversion
with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too
disdainfully at that flutter of enjoyment called a public fete; so that
Jean Valjean was able to believe that he had succeeded, and that no
trace of that hideous vision remained.

Some days later, one morning, when the sun was shining brightly, and
they were both on the steps leading to the garden, another infraction of
the rules which Jean Valjean seemed to have imposed upon himself, and
to the custom of remaining in her chamber which melancholy had caused
Cosette to adopt, Cosette, in a wrapper, was standing erect in that
negligent attire of early morning which envelops young girls in an
adorable way and which produces the effect of a cloud drawn over a star;
and, with her head bathed in light, rosy after a good sleep, submitting
to the gentle glances of the tender old man, she was picking a daisy
to pieces. Cosette did not know the delightful legend, I love a little,
passionately, etc.--who was there who could have taught her? She was
handling the flower instinctively, innocently, without a suspicion that
to pluck a daisy apart is to do the same by a heart. If there were a
fourth, and smiling Grace called Melancholy, she would have worn the air
of that Grace. Jean Valjean was fascinated by the contemplation of those
tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance
emitted by that child. A red-breast was warbling in the thicket, on one
side. White cloudlets floated across the sky, so gayly, that one would
have said that they had just been set at liberty. Cosette went on
attentively tearing the leaves from her flower; she seemed to be
thinking about something; but whatever it was, it must be something
charming; all at once she turned her head over her shoulder with the
delicate languor of a swan, and said to Jean Valjean: "Father, what are
the galleys like?"

BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH

CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN

Thus their life clouded over by degrees.

But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to
them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing
to those who