CHAPTER XXIII.
The wheat was reapen in the fields, and the brown earth turned afresh.
The white and purple chrysanthemums bloomed against the flowerless
rose-bushes, and the little gray Michaelmas daisy flourished where the
dead carnations had spread their glories. Leaves began to fall and chilly
winds to sigh among the willows; the squirrels began to store away their
nuts, and the poor to pick up the broken bare boughs.
"He said he would come before winter," thought Bebee, every day when she
rose and felt each morning cooler and grayer than the one before it;
winter was near.
Her little feet already were cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin
already sang in the twigs of the sear sweetbrier; but she had the brave
sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt--oh! no, she did
not doubt, she was only tired.
Tired of the strange, sleepless, feverish nights; tired of the long,
dull, empty days: tired of watching down the barren, leafless lane:
tired of hearkening breathless to each step on the rustling dead leaves;
tired of looking always, always, always, into the ruddy autumn evenings
and the cold autumn starlight, and never hearing what she listened for,
never seeing what she sought; tired as a child may be lost in a wood, and
wearily wearing its small strength and breaking its young heart in search
of the track forever missed, of the home forever beyond the horizon.
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