s that sum was spent, the Thenardiers grew accustomed to look on the
little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity;
and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes, they
dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the Thenardier
brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the rest
had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat.
Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions;
Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to
theirs.

The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M.
sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter every
month, that she might have news of her child. The Thenardiers replied
invariably, "Cosette is doing wonderfully well."

At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs
for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable
regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when
Thenardier said: "A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she
expect us to do with her seven francs?" and he wrote to demand twelve
francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her
child was happy, "and was coming on well," submitted, and forwarded the
twelve francs.

Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other.
Mother Thenardier loved her two daughters passionately, which caused her
to hate the stranger.

It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous
aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to
her as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child
diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many
women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and
injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain
that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received the whole
of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to
herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette could not
make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of
violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being, who
should not have understood anything of this world or of God, incessantly
punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her two little
creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of d