verywhere. The house was no less fragrant than the church;
after the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices carolling in
the infinite; they had God in their hearts; destiny appeared to them
like a ceiling of stars; above their heads they beheld the light of a
rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's
charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible
through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius'
glance, blushed to her very hair.

Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenormand family had
been invited; they pressed about Cosette. Each one vied with the rest in
saluting her as Madame la Baronne.

The officer, Theodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had come from
Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to be present at the
wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette did not recognize him.

He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him
handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than of any other
woman.

"How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer!" said
Father Gillenormand, to himself.

Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean. She was in unison
with Father Gillenormand; while he erected joy into aphorisms and
maxims, she exhaled goodness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all
the world should be happy.

She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean, inflections of
voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him
with her smile.

A banquet had been spread in the dining-room.

Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of
a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted by the happy. They do
not consent to be black. The night, yes; the shadows, no. If there is no
sun, one must be made.

The dining-room was full of gay things. In the centre, above the white
and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre with flat plates, with all
sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the
candles; around the chandelier, girandoles, on the walls, sconces with
triple and quintuple branches; mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate,
porcelain, faience, pottery, gold and silversmith's work, all was
sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled
in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there was a
flower.

In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quarte