I know how
blind the eyes get over it, and how the hearts ache; I know how the old
women starve, and the little children cry; I know that there is not a
sprig of it that is not stitched with pain; the great ladies do not
think, I dare say, because they have never worked at it or watched the
others: but I have. And so, you see, I think if I wore it I should feel
sad, and if a nail caught on it I should feel as if it were tearing the
flesh of my friends. Perhaps I say it badly; but that is what I feel."
"You do not say it badly--you speak well, for you speak from the heart,"
he answered her, and felt a tinge of shame that he had tempted her with
the gold and purple of a baser world than any that she knew.
"And yet you want to see new lands?" he pursued. "What is it you want to
see there?"
"Ah, quite other things than these," cried Bebee, still leaning her
cheeks on her hands. "That dancing and singing is very pretty and merry,
but it is just as good when old Claude fiddles and the children skip.
This wine, you tell me, is something very great; but fresh milk is much
nicer, I think.
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