She could not move among them idly as poets and girls love to do; she had
to be active amidst them, else drought and rain, and worm and snail, and
blight and frost, would have made havoc of their fairest hopes.
The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled
by all burdens; but perhaps the strongest love is that which, whilst it
adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat, for the
thing beloved.
So Bebee dreamed in her garden; but all the time for sake of it hoed and
dug, and hurt her hands, and tired her limbs, and bowed her shoulders
under the great metal pails from the well.
This wondrous morning, with the bright burden of her sixteen years upon
her, she dressed herself quickly and fed her fowls, and, happy as a bird,
went to sit on her little wooden stool in the doorway.
There had been fresh rain in the night: the garden was radiant; the smell
of the wet earth was sweeter than all perfumes that are burned in
palaces.
The dripping rosebuds nodded against her hair as she went out; the
starling called to her, "Bebee, Bebee--bonjour, bonjour.
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