see my daughter

She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, and began to listen
with rapture.

There was a child playing in the yard--the child of the portress or of some work-woman. It
was one of those accidents which are always occurring, and which seem to form a part of the
mysterious stage-setting of mournful scenes. The child--a little girl-- was going and
coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. Alas! in what
are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this little girl whom Fantine heard
singing.

"Oh!" she resumed, "it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice."

The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine listened for a while
longer, then her face clouded over, and M. Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How
wicked that doctor is not to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance,
that he has."

But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She continued to talk to
herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How happy we are going to be! We shall have a
little garden the very first thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will
play in the garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell. She will
run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then she will take her first
communion. Ah! When will she take her first communion?"

She began to reckon on her fingers.