This had been taught to Bebee, and she went to sleep every night in the firm belief that the sixteen little angels of the Flemish prayer kept watch and ward over her bed.  For the rest, being poetical, as these north folks are not, and having in her—­wherever it came from, poor little soul—­a warmth of fancy and a spirituality of vision not at all northern, she had mixed up her religion with the fairies of Antoine’s stories, and the demons in which the Flemish folks are profound believers, and the flowers into which she put all manner of sentient life, until her religion was a fantastic medley, so entangled that poor Father Francis had given up in despair any attempt to arrange it more correctly.  Indeed, being of the peasantry himself, he was not so very full sure in his own mind that demons were not bodily presences, quite as real and often much more tangible than saints.  Anyway, he let her alone; and she believed in the goodness of God as she believed in the shining of the sun.

People looked after her as she went through the twisting, picture-like streets, where sunlight fell still between the peaked high roofs, and lamps were here and there lit in the bric-a-brac shops and the fruit stalls.

Her little muslin cap blew back like the wings of a white butterfly.  Her sunny hair caught the last sun-rays.  Her feet were fair in the brown wooden shoes.  Under the short woollen skirts the grace of her pretty limbs moved freely.  Her broad silver clasps shone like a shield, and she was utterly unconscious that any one looked; she was simply and gravely intent on reaching St. Gudule to say her one prayer and not keep the children waiting.

Some one leaning idly over a balcony in the street that is named after Mary of Burgundy saw her going thus.  He left the balcony and went down his stairs and followed her.

The sun-dazzle on the silver had first caught his sight; and then he had looked downward at the pretty feet.

These are the chances women call Fate.

Bebee entered the cathedral.  It was quite empty.  Far away at the west end there was an old custodian asleep on a bench, and a woman kneeling.  That was all.

Bebee made her salutations to the high altar, and stole on into the chapel of the Saint Sacrament; it was the one that she loved best.

She said her prayer and thanked the saints for all their gifts and goodness, her clasped hand against her silver shield, her basket on the pavement by her, abovehead the sunset rays streaming purple and crimson and golden through the painted windows that are the wonder of the world.

When her prayer was done she still kneeled there; her head thrown back to watch the light, her hands clasped still, and on her upturned face the look that made the people say, “What does she see?—­the angels or the dead?”

She forgot everything.  She forgot the cherries at home, and the children even.  She was looking upward at the stories of the painted panes; she was listening to the message of the dying sun-rays; she was feeling vaguely, wistfully, unutterably the tender beauty of the sacred place and the awful wonder of the world in which she with her sixteen years was all alone, like a little blue corn-flower among the wheat that goes for grist and the barley that makes men drunk.