Sister Simplice remained alone with them.
But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:--
"I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!"
She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, and began to listen with rapture.
There was a child playing in the yard--the child of the portress or of some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious stage-setting of mournful scenes.
The child--a little girl-- was going and coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice.
Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled.
It was this little girl whom Fantine heard singing.
"Oh!" she resumed, "it is my Cosette!
I recognize her voice."
The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M. Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice:
"How wicked that doctor is not to allow me to see my daughter!
That man has an evil countenance, that he has."
But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How happy we are going to be!
We shall have a little garden the very first thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me.
My daughter will play in the garden.
She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell.
She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her.
Then she will take her first communion.
Ah! when will she take her first communion?"