Only he was so long coming--so very long; the violets died away, and the
first rosebuds came in their stead, and still Bebee looked every dawn and
every nightfall vainly down the empty road.
Nothing kills young creatures like the bitterness of waiting.
Pain they will bear, and privation they will pass through, fire and water
and storm will not appall them, nor wrath of heaven and earth, but
waiting--the long, tedious, sickly, friendless days, that drop one by one
in their eternal sameness into the weary past, these kill slowly
but surely, as the slow dropping of water frets away rock.
The summer came.
Nearly a year had gone by. Bebee worked early and late. The garden
bloomed like one big rose, and the neighbors shook their heads to see the
flowers blossom and fall without bringing in a single coin.
She herself spoke less seldom than ever; and now when old Jehan, who
never had understood the evil thoughts of his neighbors, asked her
what ailed her that she looked so pale and never stirred down to the
city, now her courage failed her, and the tears brimmed over her eyes,
and she could not call up a brave brief word to answer him.
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