“No,” she answered him.  “It comes into my head of itself.  Sometimes I think the cathedral angels put it there.  For the angels must be tired, you know; always pointing to God and always seeing men turn away, I used to tell Antoine sometimes.  But he used to shake his head and say that it was no use thinking; most likely St. Gudule and St. Michael had set the church down in the night all ready made, why not?  God made the trees, and they were more wonderful, he thought, for his part.  And so perhaps they are, but that is no answer.  And I do want to know.  I want some one who will tell me; and if you come out of Rubes’ country as I think, no doubt you know everything, or 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,