The keeper of the stall, a shrewd old soul, explained some
hard points to her, and chose good volumes for her, and lent others to
this solitary little student in her wooden shoes and with her pale
child's face.
So she toiled hard and learned much, and grew taller and very thin, and
got a look in her eyes like a lost dog's, and yet never lost heart or
wandered in the task that he had set her, or in her faith in his return.
"Burn the books, Bebee," whispered the children again and again, clinging
to her skirts. "Burn the wicked, silent things. Since you have had them
you never sing, or romp, or laugh, and you look so white--so white."
Bebee kissed them, but kept to her books.
Jeannot going by from the forest night after night saw the light
twinkling in the hut window, and sometimes crept softly up and looked
through the chinks of the wooden shutter, and saw her leaning over some
big old volume with her pretty brows drawn together, and her mouth shut
close in earnest effort, and he would curse the man who had changed her
so and go away with rage in his breast and tears in his eyes, not daring
to say anything, but knowing that never would Bebee's little brown hand
lie in love within his own.
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