"
"You little fool!" the fruit girl would say, and grin, and eat a pear.
But the good honest old women who sat about in the Grande Place, hearing,
had always taken the fruit girl to task, when they got her by herself.
"Leave the child alone, you mischievous one," said they. "Be content with
being base yourself. Look you, Lisette; she is not one like you to make
eyes at the law students, and pester the painter lads for a day's outing.
Let her be, or we will tell your mother how you leave the fruit for the
gutter children to pick and thieve, while you are stealing up the stairs
into that young French fellow's chamber. Oh, oh! a fine beating you will
get when she knows!"
Lisette's mother was a fierce and strong old Brabantoise who exacted
heavy reckoning with her daughter for every single plum and peach
that she sent out of her dark sweet-smelling fruit shop to be sunned in
the streets, and under the students' love-glances.
So the girl took heed, and left Bebee alone.
"What should I want her to come with us for?" she reasoned with herself.
"She is twice as pretty as I am; Jules might take to her instead--who
knows?"
So that she was at once savage and yet triumphant when she saw, as she
thought, Bebee drifting down the high flood of temptation.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142