“Poor little Bebee!” he said again.  “Did I frighten you indeed?  Nay, that was very base of me.  We will not spoil our summer holiday.  There is no such thing as a fiend, my dear.  There are only men—­such as I am.  Say the daisy spell over for me, Bebee.  See if I do not love you a little, just as you love your flowers.”

She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face.

“Oh, I am sure you care for me a little,” she said, softly, “or you would not be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not want the daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which is better.”

“Much better.” he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass, holding the little wooden shoes in his hands.

He was not in love with her.  He was in no haste.  He preferred to play with her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to see the deep rose of its heart.

Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him.  He liked to lift the veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat, each fresh instinct tremble into life.

It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse to weariness, though there still was no other story that he still read as often.  But to her it was so new.

To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; he recognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand times each tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow would fall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvest would be reaped.

But to her it was so new.

She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a garden and reads her a wonder tale.

He was good to her, that was all she knew.  When he touched her ever so lightly she felt a happiness so perfect, and yet so unintelligible, that she could have wished to die in it.

And in her humility and her ignorance she wondered always how he—­so great, so wise, so beautiful—­could have thought it ever worth his while to leave the paradise of Rubes’ land to wait with her under her little rush-thatched roof, and bring her here to see the green leaves and the living things of the forest.

As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood upon his back.  Bebee gave a little cry of recognition.

“Oh, look, that is Jeannot!  How he will wonder to see me here!”

Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onward without perceiving them.

“Why do you do that?” said Bebee.  “Shall I not speak to him?”

“Why?  To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest?  It is not worth while.”

“Ah, but I always tell them everything,” said Bebee. whose imagination had been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to Mere Krebs and the Varnhart children.

“Then you will see but little of me, my dear.  Learn to be silent, Bebee.  It is a woman’s first duty, though her hardest.”