“To Paris?” she asked, entreatingly, going where she saw others going, to a little grated wicket in a wall.

“Twenty-seven francs—­quick!” they demanded of her.  Bebee gave a great cry, and stood still, trembling and trying not to sob aloud.  She had never thought of money; she had forgotten that youth and strength and love and willing feet and piteous prayers,—­all went for nothing as this world is made.

A hope flashed on her and a glad thought.  She loosed the silver buckles, and held them out.

“Would you take these?  They are worth much more.”

There was a derisive laughter; some one bade her with an oath begone; rough shoulders jostled her away.  She stretched her arms out piteously.

“Take me—­oh, pray take me!  I will go with the sheep, with the cattle—­only, only take me!”

But in the rush and roar none heeded her; some thief snatched the silver buckles from her hand, and made off with them and was lost in the throng; a great iron beast rushed by her, snorting flame and bellowing smoke; there was a roll like thunder, and all was dark; the night express had passed on its way to Paris.

Bebee stood still, crushed for a moment with the noise and the cruelty and the sense of absolute desolation; she scarcely noticed that the buckles had been stolen; she had only one thought—­to get to Paris.

“Can I never go without money?” she asked at the wicket; the man there glanced a moment, with a touch of pity, at the little wistful face.

“The least is twenty francs—­surely you must know that?” he said, and shut his grating with a clang.

Bebee turned away and went out of the great cruel, tumultuous place; her heart ached and her brain was giddy, but the sturdy courage of her nature rose to need.

“There is no way at all to go without money to Paris, I suppose?” she asked of an old woman whom she knew a little, who sold nuts and little pictures of saints and wooden playthings under the trees, in the avenue hard by.

The old woman shook her head.

“Eh?—­no, dear.  There is nothing to be done anywhere in the world without money.  Look, I cannot get a litre of nuts to sell unless I pay beforehand.”

“Would it be far to walk?”

“Far!  Holy Jesus!  It is right away in the heart of France—­over two hundred miles, they say; straight out through the forest.  Not but what my son did walk it once;—­and he a shoemaker, who knows what walking costs; and he is well-to-do there now—­not that he ever writes.  When they want nothing people never write.”

“And he walked into Paris?”

“Yes, ten years ago.  He had nothing but a few sous and an ash stick, and he had a fancy to try his luck there.  And after all our feet were given us to travel with.  If you go there and you see him, tell him to send me something—­I am tired of selling nuts.”

Bebee said nothing, but went on her road; since there was no other way but to walk, she would take that way; the distance and the hardship did not appall two little feet that were used to traverse so many miles of sun-baked summer dust and of frozen winter mud unblenchingly year after year.