d fast and well her lilacs and her
roses, and her knots of thyme and sweetbrier.

She was always a little sorry to see them go, her kindly pretty playmates
that, nine times out of ten no doubt, only drooped and died in the hands
that purchased them, as human souls soil and shrivel in the grasp of the
passions that woo them.

The day was a busy one, and brought in good profit. Bebee had no less
than fifty sous in her leather pouch when it was over,--a sum of
magnitude in the green lane by Laeken.

A few of her moss-roses were still unsold, that was all, when the Ave
Maria began ringing over the town and the people dispersed to their homes
or their pleasuring.

It was a warm gray evening: the streets were full; there were blossoms in
all the balconies, and gay colors in all the dresses. The old tinker put
his tools together, and whispered to her,--

"Bebee, as it is your feast day, come and stroll in St. Hubert's gallery,
and I will buy you a little gilt heart, or a sugar-apple stick, or a
ribbon, and we can see the puppet show afterwards, eh?"

But the children were waiting at home: she would not spend the evening in
the city; she only thought she would just kneel a moment in the cathedral
and say a little prayer or two for a minute--the saints were so good in
giving her so many friends.

There is something very touching in the Flemish peasant's relation with
his Deity. It is all very vague to him: a jumble of veneration and
familiarity, of sanctity and profanity, without any thought of being
familiar, or any idea of being profane.

There is a homely poetry, an innocent affectionateness in it,
characteristic of the people. He talks to his good angel Michael, and to
his friend that dear little Jesus, much as he would talk to the shoemaker
over the way, or the cooper's child in the doorway.

It is a very unreasonable, foolish, clumsy sort of religion, this
theology in wooden shoes; it is half grotesque, half pathetic; the
grandmothers pass it on to the grandchildren as they pass the bowl of
potatoes round the stove in the long winter nights; it is as silly as
possible, but it comforts them as they carry fagots over the frozen
canals or wear their eyes blind over the squares of lace; and it has in
it the supreme pathos of any perfect confidence, of any utterly childlike
and undoubting trust.

This had been taught to Bebee, and she went to sleep every night in the
firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the