"
"Our Lady?--oh, poor little simpleton!--where will her reign be when
Ignorance has once been cut down root and branch?" he thought to himself:
but he only answered,--
"But whether she like it or not, Bebee?--you beg the question, my dear;
you are--you are not so frank as usual--think, and tell me honestly?"
He knew quite well, but it amused him to see the perplexed trouble that
this, the first divided duty of her short years, brought with it.
Bebee looked at him, and loosened her hand from his, and sat quite still.
Her lips had a little quiver in them.
"I think." she said at last, "I think--if it _be_ wrong, still I will
wish it--yes. Only I will not tell myself it is right. I will just say to
Our Lady, 'I am wicked, perhaps, but I cannot help it' So, I will not
deceive her at all; and perhaps in time she may forgive. But I think you
only say it to try me. It cannot, I am sure, be wrong--any more than it
is to talk to Jeannot or to Bac."
He had driven her into the subtleties of doubt, but the honest little
soul in her found a way out, as a flower in a cellar finds its way
through the stones to light.
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