"Bebee, I must paint you as Gretchen before she made a
love-dial of the daisies. What is the story? Oh, I have told you stories
enough. Gretchen's you would not understand, just yet."
"But what did the daisies say to her?"
"My dear, the daisies always say the same thing, because daisies always
tell the truth and know men. The daisies always say 'a little'; it is the
girl's ear that tricks her, and makes her hear 'till death,'--a folly and
falsehood of which the daisy is not guilty."
"But who says it if the daisy does not?"
"Ah, the devil perhaps--who knows? He has so much to do in these things."
But Bebee did not smile; she had a look of horror in her blue eyes; she
belonged to a peasantry who believed in exorcising the fiend by the aid
of the cross, and who not so very many generations before had driven him
out of human bodies by rack and flame.
She looked with a little wistful fear on the white, golden-eyed
marguerites that lay on her lap.
"Do you think the fiend is in these?" she whispered, with awe in her
voice.
Flamen smiled. "When you count them he will be there, no doubt.
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