I have heard it said

 I have heard it said,
a girl becomes a woman
without a whisper.

I have heard it said,
the moment you look away
she assumes her shape.


—


It seemed to him

that it was no longer

the same girl.

The woman whom he now saw
was a noble, beautiful creature
with the most bewitching outlines of a woman,
at the precise moment
at which they are yet combined
with all the most charming graces of childhood.

Nothing is more frequent
than this phenomenon.

There is a moment when girls
bloom out in a twinkling
and become roses all at once.

Yesterday we left them children,
today we find them dangerous.

Victor Hugo,
Les Misérables