"Truly, sir?" said Cosette.
"Is it true?
Is the `lady' mine?"
The stranger's eyes seemed to be full of tears.
He appeared to have reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest he should weep.
He nodded to Cosette, and placed the "lady's" hand in her tiny hand.
Cosette hastily withdrew her hand, as though that of the "lady" scorched her, and began to stare at the floor.
We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled round and seized the doll in a transport.
"I shall call her Catherine," she said.
It was an odd moment when Cosette's rags met and clasped the ribbons and fresh pink muslins of the doll.
"Madame," she resumed, "may I put her on a chair?"
"Yes, my child," replied the Thenardier.
It was now the turn of Eponine and Azelma to gaze at Cosette with envy.
Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an attitude of contemplation.
"Play, Cosette," said the stranger.
"Oh!
I am playing," returned the child.
This stranger, this unknown individual, who had the air of a visit which Providence was making on Cosette, was the person whom the Thenardier hated worse than any one in the world at that moment.
However, it was necessary to control herself. Habituated as she was to dissimulation through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these emotions were more than she could endure.
She made haste to send her daughters to bed, then she asked the man's permission to send Cosette off also; "for she has worked hard all day," she added with a maternal air. Cosette went off to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms.