ter. The inn was like a spider's web, in which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. It was something like a fly serving the spiders. She was awake every morning before any one else in the house or the village, and the neighbors called her the Lark, but the little Lark never sang.

Four new travellers had arrived.

Cosette was thinking sadly; for, although she was only eight years old, she had already suffered so much that she had the air of an old woman. She was thinking that it was dark, very dark, and that the pitchers in the rooms must be filled, and that there was no more water in the cistern.

From time to time one of the travellers looked into the street, and exclaimed, "It's as black as an oven!" or, "One must needs be a cat to go about the streets without a lantern at this hour!" And Cosette trembled.

She was in rags; her bare feet were in wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was knitting woolen stockings for the landlady's little girls. A very young kitten was playing about among the chairs. She could hear laughter and chatter in the adjoining room, where the landlady's two little girls, Eponine and Azelma, were playing. But when she thought of the empty cistern she felt her heart leaping into her throat like a great ball. She counted the minutes as they thus rolled away, and eagerly wished it were morning.

All at once, one of the pedlars who lodged in the tavern came in, and said in a harsh voice:

"You have not watered my horse." "Yes, we have," said the landlady.

"I tell you no, ma'am," replied the pedlar. Cosette came out from under the table.

"Oh, yes, monsieur !" said she, "the horse did drink; he

drank in the bucket, the bucket full, and 'twas I that carried it to him, and I talked to him."

This was not true. Cosette lied.

"Here is a girl as big as my fist, who can tell a lie as big as a house," exclaimed the pedlar. "I tell you that he has not had any water! He has a way of blowing when he has not had any water, that I know well enough."

Cosette persisted, and added in a voice which could hardly be heard:

"But he did drink a good deal."

"Come," continued the pedlar, in a passion, “that is enough; give my horse some water, and say no more about it."

Cosette went back under the table.

"Well, of course that is right," said Madame Thénardier; "if the beast has not had any water, she must have some.' Then looking about her:

"Well, what has become of that girl?"

She stooped down and discovered Cosette crouched at the other end of the table, almost under the feet of the men. "Aren't you coming?" cried the landlady.

Cosette came out of the kind of hole where she had hidden. The landlady continued:

"Go and carry some drink to the horse."

"But, ma'am," said Cosette feebly, "there is no water." Madame Thénardier threw the street door wide open. "Well, go after some!"

Cosette hung her head, and went for an empty bucket that was by the chimney corner.

The bucket was larger than she, and the child could have sat down in it comfortably.

Madame Thénardier went back to her range, and tasted

what was in the kettle with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while.

"There is some at the spring. She is the worst girl that ever was. I think 'twould have been better if I'd left out the onions."

Then she fumbled in a drawer where there were some pennies, pepper, and garlic.

"Here, Ma'm'selle Toad," added she, "get a big loaf at the baker's, as you come back. Here is fifteen sous.

Cosette had a little pocket in the side of her apron; she took the piece without saying a word, and put it in that pocket.

Then she remained motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She seemed to be waiting for somebody to come to her aid.

"Get along!" cried Madame Thénardier.

Cosette went out. The door closed.

Exactly opposite Thénardier's door was a toy-shop, all glittering with trinkets, glass beads, and things magnificent in tin. In the first rank, and in front, the merchant had placed, upon a bed of white napkins, a great doll nearly two feet high dressed in a robe of pink crêpe with golden wheatears on its head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. The whole day this marvel had been displayed. Eponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette herself, furtively, it is true, had dared to look at it.

At the moment when Cosette went out, bucket in hand, all gloomy and overwhelmed as she was, she could not help raising her eyes towards this wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it.

This whole booth seemed a palace to her; the doll was not a doll, it was a vision. It was joy, splendour, riches, hap

piness, to this little being, buried so deeply in a cold and dismal misery. She was saying to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a "thing" like that. She gazed upon this beautiful pink dress, this beautiful smooth hair, and she was thinking, "How happy must be that doll!" Her eye could not turn away from the fantastic booth. The longer she looked, the more she was dazzled. She thought she saw paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one that appeared to her to be fairies. Looking at the doll, she forgot everything. Suddenly the harsh voice of the landlady called her back to reality:

"How, child, haven't you gone yet? Be off."

Cosette fled with her bucket, running as fast as she could. She had to go to the spring in the woods to draw water. Soon the last gleam from the last shop disappeared. The poor child found herself in darkness. She shook the handle of the bucket as much as she could on her way. That made a voice which kept her company.

Fom time to time she saw the light of a candle through the cracks of a shutter: it was life and light to her: there were people there; that kept up her courage.

When she had passed the last house, Cosette stopped. To go beyond the last shop had been difficult: to go farther than the last house was impossible.

She put the bucket on the ground and buried her hands in her hair. It was the village no longer. It was the open country. She looked with despair into this darkness where nobody was.

Then she seized her bucket again. Fear gave her boldness. "Pshaw!" said she, "I will tell her there isn't any more water!" and she turned back toward the village.

She had scarcely gone a hundred steps when she stopped