"And besides, if I can save a centime, the Varnhart children ought to
have it," thought Bebee, as she swept the dust together. It was so
selfish of her to be dreaming about a pair of stockings, when those
little things often went for days on a stew of nettles.
So she looked at her own pretty feet,--pretty and slender, and arched,
rosy, and fair, and uncramped by the pressure of leather,--and resigned
her day-dream with a brave heart, as she put up her broom and went out to
weed, and hoe, and trim, and prune the garden that had been for once
neglected the night before.
"One could not move half so easily in stockings," she thought with true
philosophy as she worked among the black, fresh, sweet-smelling mould,
and kissed a rose now and then as she passed one.
When she got into the city that day, her rush-bottomed chair, which was
always left upside down in case rain should fall in the night, was set
ready for her, and on its seat was a gay, gilded box, such as rich people
give away full of bonbons.
Bebee stood and looked from the box to the Broodhuis, from the Broodhuis
to the box; she glanced around, but no one had come there so early as
she, except the tinker, who was busy quarrelling with his wife and
letting his smelting fire burn a hole in his breeches.
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