"Over at Nanterre and Suresne the vintage has been very productive, and where people expected ten barrels they have a dozen. The grapes were very juicy when put under the press."--"But the grapes could not have been ripe?"--"In these parts, they must not be picked ripe, for the wine becomes oily in spring."--"Then it must be a very poor wine?"--"There are poorer wines than those about here," etc. Or else a miller exclaimed,-- "Are we responsible for what there is in the sack? We find a lot of small seeds, which we can't waste time in sifting, and which must pass under the mill-stones; such as tares, lucern, cockles, vetches, amaranths, hemp-seed, and a number of other weeds, without counting the pebbles which are so frequent in some sorts of wheat, especially Breton wheat. I don't like grinding Breton wheat, any more than sawyers like sawing beams in which there are nails. You can fancy the bad dust all this makes in the hopper, and then people complain unfairly of the flour, for it is no fault of ours." Between two windows a mower seated at a table with a farmer, who was making a bargain to have a field mown in spring, said,-- "There is no harm in the grass being damp, for it cuts better. But your grass is tender, and hard to cut, sir, for it is so young, and bends before the scythe," etc. etc. Cosette was seated at her usual place, the cross-bar of the table, near the chimney; she was in rags, her bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes, and she was knitting, by the fire-light, stockings intended for the young Thénardiers. Two merry children could be heard laughing and prattling in an adjoining room; they were Éponine and Azelma. A cat-o'-nine-tails hung from a nail by the side of the chimney. At times, the cry of a baby somewhere in the house was audible through the noise of the tap-room; it was a little boy Madame Thénardier had given birth to one winter, "without knowing how," she used to say, "it was the effect of the cold," and who was a little over three years of age. The mother suckled him, but did not love him; when his cries became too troublesome, Thénardier would say,--"There's your brat squalling; go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would answer, "he's a nuisance;" and the poor deserted little wretch would continue to cry in the darkness. CHAPTER II TWO FULL-LENGTH PORTRAITS.