Bebee listened to them all, and the tears dried on her cheeks, and her
pretty rosebud lips curled close in one another.
"You are very good, no doubt, all of you," she said at last. "But I
cannot tell you that I am thankful, for my heart is like a stone, and I
think it is not so very much for me as it is for the hut that you are
speaking. Perhaps it is wrong in me to say so; yes, I am wrong, I am
sure,--you are all kind, and I am only Bebee. But you see he told me to
live here and take care of the flowers, and I must do it, that is
certain. I will ask Father Francis, if you wish: but if he tells me I am
wrong, as you do. I shall stay here all the same."
And in answer to their expostulations and condemnation, she only said the
same thing over again always, in different words, but to the same
steadfast purpose. The women clamored about her for an hour in reproach
and rebuke; she was a baby indeed, she was a little fool, she was a
naughty, obstinate child, she was an ungrateful, wilful little creature,
who ought to be beaten till she was blue, if only there was anybody that
had the right to do it!
"But there is nobody that has the right," said Bebee, getting angry and
standing upright on the floor, with Antoine's old gray cat in her round
arms.
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