With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the moon rays white and strong on the page, Bebee sat entranced as the hours went by; the children’s play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her; the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus cups in the hedges.

Bebee did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her.

A heavy step came tramping down the lane.  A voice called to her,—­

“What are you doing, Bebee, there, this time of the night?  It is on the strike of twelve.”

She started as if she were doing some evil thing, and stretched her arms out, and looked around with blinded, wondering eyes, as if she had been rudely wakened from her sleep.

“What are you doing up so late?” asked Jeannot; he was coming from the forest in the dead of night to bring food for his family; he lost his sleep thus often, but he never thought that he did anything except his duty in those long, dark, tiring tramps to and fro between Soignies and Laeken.

Bebee shut her book and smiled with dreaming eyes, that saw him not at all.

“I was reading—­and, Jeannot, his name is Flamen for the world, but I may call him Victor.”

“What do I care for his name?”

“You asked it this morning.”

“More fool I. Why do you read?  Reading is not for poor folk like you and me.”

Bebee smiled up at the white clear moon that sailed above the woods.

She was not awake out of her dream.  She
only dimly heard the words he spoke.

“You are a little peasant,” said Jeannot roughly, as he paused at the gate.  “It is all you can do to get your bread.  You have no one to stand between you and hunger.  How will it be with you when the slug gets your roses, and the snail your carnations, and your hens die of damp, and your lace is all wove awry, because your head runs on reading and folly, and you are spoilt for all simple pleasures and for all honest work?”

She smiled, still looking up at the moon, with the dropping ivy touching her hair.

“You are cross, dear Jeannot.  Good night.”

A moment afterwards the little rickety door was shut, and the rusty bolt drawn within it; Jeannot stood in the cool summer night all alone, and knew how stupid he had been in his wrath.

He leaned on the gate a minute; then crossed the garden as softly as his wooden shoes would let him.  He tapped gently on the shutter of the lattice.

“Bebee—­Bebee—­just listen.  I spoke roughly, dear—­I know I have no right.  I am sorry.  Will you be friends with me again?—­do be friends again.”

She opened the shutter a little way, so that he could see her pretty mouth speaking, “we are friends—­we will always be friends, of course—­only you do not know.  Good night.”