"Just the same age as my eldest."
In the mean time the children were grouped in a posture of profound anxiety and blessedness; an event had occurred. A large worm crept out of the ground, and they were frightened, and were in ecstasy; their radiant brows touched each other; and they looked like three heads in a halo.
"How soon children get to know one another," Mother Thénardier exclaimed; "why, they might be taken for three sisters."
The word was probably the spark which the other mother had been waiting for; she seized the speaker's hand, looked at her fixedly, and said,—
"Will you take charge of my child for me?"
The woman gave one of those starts of surprise which are neither assent nor refusal. Fantine continued,—
"Look you, I cannot take the child with me to my town, for when a woman has a baby, it is a hard matter for her to get a situation. People are so foolish in our part. It was Heaven that made me pass in front of your inn; when I saw your little ones so pretty, so clean, so happy, it gave me a turn. I said to myself, "She is a kind mother." It is so; they will be three sisters. Then I shall not be long before I come back. Will you take care of my child?"
"We will see, said Mother Thénardier.
"I would pay six francs a month."
Here a man's voice cried from the back of the tap-room,—