All was happy, quiet, homely; lovely also in its simple way.
They went early to their beds, as people must do who rise at dawn.
Bebee leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too went
to rest.
Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child's
prayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on in
the dark--all was still.
Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of the
year.
She was only a little peasant--she must sweep, and spin, and dig, and
delve, to get daily her bit of black bread,--but that night she was as
happy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, in
her flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silver
buckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in the
singing birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in the
fragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happy
because she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, because
she was wholly a poet.
"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!--how good it is to live at
all!--do you not tell the willows so?" said Bebee to the gleam of silver
under the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where her
friends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their stately
heads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes.
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