When evening came, Jean Valjean went out; Cosette dressed herself.
She arranged her hair in the most becoming manner, and she put on a dress whose bodice had received one snip of the scissors too much, and which, through this slope, permitted a view of the beginning of her throat, and was, as young girls say, 'a trifle indecent.
' It was not in the least indecent, but it was prettier than usual. She made her toilet thus without knowing why she did so. Did she mean to go out? No. Was she expecting a visitor? No. At dusk, she went down to the garden.
Toussaint was busy in her kitchen, which opened on the back yard. She began to stroll about under the trees, thrusting aside the branches from time to time with her hand, because there were some which hung very low. In this manner she reached the bench.
The stone was still there. She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she wished to caress and thank it.
All at once, she experienced that indefinable impression which one undergoes when there is some one standing behind one, even when she does not see the person. She turned her head and rose to her feet. It was he. His head was bare.
He appeared to have grown thin and pale. His black clothes were hardly discernible. The twilight threw a wan light on his fine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Beneath a veil of incomparable sweetness, he had something about him that suggested death and night.
His face was illuminated by the light of the dying day, and by the thought of a soul that is taking flight. He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was no longer