"Of course she has clothes, poor little treasure. I saw it was your husband; and a fine stock of clothes too, a wonderful stock, a dozen of everything, and silk frocks like a lady. The things are in my bag."
"They must be handed over," the man's voice remarked.
"Of course they must," said the mother; "it would be funny if I left my child naked."
The master's face appeared.
"All right," he said.
The bargain was concluded, the mother spent the night at the inn, paid her money and left her child, fastened up her bag, which was now light, and started the next morning with the intention of returning soon. Such departures are arranged calmly, but they entail despair. A neighbor's wife saw the mother going away, and went home saying,—
"I have just seen a woman crying in the street as if her heart was broken."
When Cosette's mother had gone, the man said to his wife,—
"That money will meet my bill for one hundred and ten francs, which falls due to-morrow, and I was fifty francs short. It would have been protested, and I should have had a bailiff put in. You set a famous mouse-trap with your young ones."
"Without suspecting it," said the woman.