melancholy songs which
delighted Jean Valjean.

Spring came; the garden was so delightful at that season of the year,
that Jean Valjean said to Cosette:--

"You never go there; I want you to stroll in it."

"As you like, father," said Cosette.

And for the sake of obeying her father, she resumed her walks in the
garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who
was probably afraid of being seen through the fence, hardly ever went
there.

Jean Valjean's wound had created a diversion.

When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was
convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a
contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally
had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing
longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a
portion of our sadness; then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh
as dawn always is, gay like every childhood; a little inclined to weep
at times like the new-born being that it is. In that month, nature
has charming gleams which pass from the sky, from the trees, from the
meadows and the flowers into the heart of man.

Cosette was still too young to escape the penetrating influence of that
April joy which bore so strong a resemblance to herself. Insensibly, and
without her suspecting the fact, the blackness departed from her spirit.
In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday.
Cosette was no longer sad. However, though this was so, she did not
account for it to herself. In the morning, about ten o'clock, after
breakfast, when she had succeeded in enticing her father into the garden
for a quarter of an hour, and when she was pacing up and down in the
sunlight in front of the steps, supporting his left arm for him, she did
not perceive that she laughed every moment and that she was happy.

Jean Valjean, intoxicated, beheld her growing fresh and rosy once more.

"Oh! What a good wound!" he repeated in a whisper.

And he felt grateful to the Thenardiers.

His wound once healed, he resumed his solitary twilight strolls.

It is a mistake to suppose that a person can stroll alone in that
fashion in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some
adventure.

CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A
PHENOMENON

One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat; he remembered
that he had not dined o