n the rest of us,"
hissed her enemy, Lisette, the fruit girl, against her as she went by the
stall one evening as the sun set. "Prut! so it was no such purity after
all that made you never look at the student lads and the soldiers, eh?
You were so dainty of taste, you must needs pick and choose, and, Lord's
sake, after all your coyness, to drop at a beckoning finger as one may
say--pong!--in a minute, like an apple over-ripe! Oh he, you sly one!"

Bebee flushed red, in a sort of instinct of offence; not sure what her
fault was, but vaguely stung by the brutal words.

Bebee walked homeward by him, with her empty baskets: looked at him with
grave wondering eyes.

"What did she mean? I do not understand. I must have done some wrong--or
she thinks so. Do you know?"

Flamen laughed, and answered her evasively,--

"You have done her the wrong of a fair skin when hers is brown, and a
little foot while hers is as big as a trooper's; there is no greater sin,
Bebee, possible in woman to woman."

"Hold your peace, you shrill jade," he added, in anger to the fruiterer,
flinging at her a crown piece, that the girl caught, and bit with her
teeth with a chuckle. "Do not heed her, Bebee. She is a coarse-tongued
brute, and is jealous, no doubt."

"Jealous?--of what?"

The word had no meaning to Bebee.

"That I am not a student or a soldier, as her lovers are."

As her lovers were! Bebee felt her face burn again. Was he her lover
then? The child's innocent body and soul thrilled with a hot, sweet
delight and fear commingled.

Bebee was not quite satisfied until she had knelt down that night and
asked the Master of all poor maidens to see if there were any wickedness
in her heart, hidden there like a bee in a rose, and if there were to
take it out and make her worthier of this wonderful new happiness in her
life.

CHAPTER XIV.

The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest
wakes in summer Bebee was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In
the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan
had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liege way, which the bishop of the city
had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty.

Bebee doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming
over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of
the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all
through the shining hours, Bebee felt her