Cosette raised her eyes. She had looked upon the man coming to her with this doll as she would have looked upon the sun; she heard the unusual words, “This is for you”; she looked at him; she looked at the doll; then she backed slowly away, and went and hid herself on the floor under the other table in the corner of the wall.
“Well, now, Cosette,” said the woman in a voice that she tried to make soft, “why don’t you take your doll?”
Cosette had not the courage to creep out of her hole.
“My little Cosette,” said the woman, in a caressing tone, “take it. It is yours.”
Cosette looked at the doll almost in terror. Her face was still wet with tears, but her eyes began to glow, like the skies at early dawn, with strange rays of joy. What she felt at that moment was a little like what she would have felt if some one had suddenly said to her: “Little one, you are queen of France.” It seemed to her that if she touched this doll, thunder would come out of it.
At last she came near it, and murmured timidly as she looked at the woman: “May I take it, then?”
“Yes, indeed,” said the woman; “it is yours. The gentleman has given it to you.”
“Is it true, sir? Is it really true, that this lovely lady is mine?”
Suddenly she turned and seized the doll with delight. “I’ll call you Catherine!” she cried.
That was a queer sight when the rags of little Cosette touched and covered up the doll’s pink ribbons and silk.