It was such a little, small, square place; and its floor was of beaten
clay; and its unceiled roof he could have touched; and its absolute
poverty was so plain,--and yet the child looked so happy in it, and was
so like a flower, and was so dainty and fresh, and even so full of grace.
She stood and looked at him with frank and grateful eyes; she could
hardly believe that he was here; he, the stranger of Rubes' land, in her
own little rush-covered home.
But she was not embarrassed by it; she was glad and proud.
There is a dignity of peasants as well as of kings,--the dignity that
comes from all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Bebee had
this, and she had more still than this: she had the absolute simplicity
of childhood with her still.
Some women have it still when they are four-score.
She could have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared
nothing now for those dazzling dahlias--he had left them; he was actually
here--here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the
threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the starling
crying, "Bonjour! Bonjour!"
"You are tired, I am sure you must be tired," she said, pulling her
little bed forward for him to sit on, for there were only two wooden
stools in the hut, and no chair at all.
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