But she coughed in a melancholy way. One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She was livid and her lips were blue.
She smiled now and then.
Five o''clock struck.
Then the sister heard her say, very low and gently, "He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away to-morrow."
Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine''s delay.
In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She seemed to be endeavoring to recall something.
All at once she began to sing in a voice as feeble as a breath.
The nun listened. This is what Fantine was singing:--"Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.
"Yestere''en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle clad, and said to me, `Here, hide ''neath my veil the child whom you one day begged from me.
Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy thread.''
"Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
"Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons decked.
God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast granted me.
`Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?''--`Make of it clothes for thy new-born babe.''
"Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue,