It was Gretchen, spinning, out in the open air among the flowers.
Gretchen, with the tall dog-daisies growing up about her feet, among
the thyme and the roses, before she had had need to gather, one to ask
her future of its parted leaves.
The Gretchen of Scheffer tells no tale; she is a fair-haired,
hard-working, simple-minded peasant, with whom neither angels nor devils
have anything to do, and whose eyes never can open to either hell or
heaven. But the Gretchen of Flamen said much more than this: looking
at it, men would sigh from shame, and women weep from sorrow.
"Count the daisies?" echoed Bebee. "Oh, I know what you mean. A
little--much--passionately--until death--not at all. What the girls say
when they want to see if any one loves them? Is that it?"
She looked at him without any consciousness, except as she loved the
flowers.
"Do you think the daisies know?" she went on, seriously, parting their
petals with her fingers. "Flowers do know many things--that is certain."
"Ask them for yourself."
"Ask them what?"
"How much--any one--loves you?"
"Oh, but every one loves me; there is no one that is bad.
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