"Not yet," said Reine, hanging her last shirt.
But Bebee was not hearing; she was calling the chickens, and telling the
oxlips how pretty they looked in the borders; and in her heart she was
counting the minutes till the old Dutch cuckoo-clock at Mere Krebs's--the
only clock in the lane--should crow out the hour at which she went down
to the city.
She loved the hut, the birds, the flowers; but they were little to her
now compared with the dark golden picturesque square, the changing
crowds, the frowning roofs, the gray stones, and colors and shadows of
the throngs for one face and for one smile.
"He is sure to be there," she thought, and started half an hour earlier
than was her wont. She wanted to tell him all her rapture in the book; no
one else could understand.
But all the day through he never came.
Bebee sat with a sick heart and a parched little throat, selling her
flowers and straining her eyes through the tumult of the square.
The whole day went by, and there was no sign of him.
The flowers had sold well: it was a feast day; her pouch was full of
pence--what was that to her?
She went and prayed in the cathedral, but it seemed cold, and desolate,
and empty; even the storied windows seemed dark.
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