remember it?"

He smiled.

"The free pass to Rubes' country lies in books, pretty one. Shall I give
you some?--nay, lend them, I mean, since giving you are too wilful to
hear of without offence. You can read, you said?"

Bebee's eyes glowed as they lifted themselves to his.

"I can read--not very fast, but that would come with doing it more and
more, I think, just as spinning does; one knots the thread and breaks it
a million times before one learns to spin as fine as cobwebs. I have read
the stories of St. Anne, and of St. Catherine, and of St. Luven fifty
times, but they are all the books that Father Francis has; and no one
else has any among us."

"Very well. You shall have books of mine. Easy ones first, and then those
that are more serious. But what time will you have? You do so much; you
are like a little golden bee."

Bebee laughed happily.

"Oh! give me the books and I will find the time. It is light so early
now. That gives one so many hours. In winter one has so few one must lie
in bed, because to buy a candle you know one cannot afford except, of
course, a taper now and then, as one's duty is, for our Lady or for the
dead. And will you really, really, lend me books?"

"Really, I will. Yes. I will bring you one to the Grande Place
to-morrow, or meet you on your road there with it. Do you know what
poetry is, Bebee?"

"No."

"But your flowers talk to you?"

"Ah! always. But then no one else hears them ever but me; and so no one
else ever believes."

"Well, poets are folks who hear the flowers talk as you do, and the
trees, and the seas, and the beasts, and even the stones; but no one
else ever hears these things, and so, when the poets write them out, the
rest of the world say, 'That is very fine, no doubt, but only good for
dreamers; it will bake no bread.' I will give you some poetry; for I
think you care more about dreams than about bread."

"I do not know," said Bebee; and she did not know, for her dreams, like
her youth, and her innocence, and her simplicity, and her strength, were
all unconscious of themselves, as such things must be to be pure and true
at all.

Bebee had grown up straight, and clean, and fragrant, and joyous as one
of her own carnations; but she knew herself no more than the carnation
knows its color and its root,

"No. you do not know," said he, with a sort of pity; and thought within
himself, was it worth while to let her know?

If she did not know, these vague