Cosette returned to her work, but for more than a quarter of an hour she felt her heart beating in her chest. She counted the minutes that passed thus, and wished that it were next morning. From time to time one of the topers looked out into the street and said, "It's as black as pitch," or "A man would have to be a cat to go into the street at this hour without a lantern," and Cosette shivered. All at once one of the pedlers lodging at the inn came in and said in a harsh voice,-- "My horse has had no water." "Oh yes, it has," said Madame Thénardier. "I tell you it has not, mother," the pedler went on. Cosette had crept out from under the table. "Oh yes, sir," she said, "your horse drank a bucketful, and I gave it the water and talked to it." This was not true. "There's a girl no bigger than one's fist who tells a lie as big as a house," the pedler exclaimed. "I tell you it has not had any water, you little devil; it has a way of breathing which I know well when it has not drunk." Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse by agony, and which was scarce audible,-- "Oh, indeed, the horse drank a lot." "Enough of this," the pedler said savagely; "give my horse water." Cosette went back under the table. "Well, that is but fair," said Madame; "if the brute has not drunk it ought to drink." Then she looked around her. "Why, where is the little devil?" She stooped down, and discovered Cosette hidden at the other end of the table, almost under the feet of the topers. "Come out of that!" her mistress shouted. Cosette came out of the hole in which she had hidden herself, and the landlady continued,-- "Miss What's-your-name, give the horse water." "There is no water, Madame," Cosette said faintly. Her mistress threw the street door wide open. "Well, go and fetch some." Cosette hung her head, and fetched an empty bucket standing in a corner near the chimney; it was larger than herself, and she could have sat down in it comfortably. Madame Thénardier returned to her stove and tasted the contents of a stew-pan with a wooden spoon, while growling,-- "There's plenty at the spring. I believe it would have been better to sift the onions." Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained halfpence, pepper, and shalots. "Here, Miss Toad," she added, "as you come back, you will fetch a loaf from the baker's. Here's a fifteen-sous piece." Cosette had a small pocket in her apron, in which she placed the coin; then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, and with the door open before her. She seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her help. "Be off!" her mistress shouted. Cosette went out and shut the door after her. CHAPTER IV. A DOLL COMES ON THE STAGE.