Perhaps she had done
wrong, but they had been harsh, and she was so young.
The two little sabots with the holes worn through the soles touched them;
and they blamed themselves for having shut their hearts and their doors
against her as they saw the fixed blue eyes, without any light in them,
and the pretty mouth closed close against either sob or smile.
After all she was Bebee--the little bright blithe thing that had danced
with their children, and sung to their singing, and brought them always
the first roses of the year. If she had been led astray, they should have
been gentler with her.
So they told themselves and each other.
What had she seen in that terrible Paris to change her like this?--they
could not tell She never spoke.
The cock crowed gayly to the sun. The lamb bleated in the meadow. The
bees boomed among the pear-tree blossoms. The gray lavender blew in the
open house door. The green leaves threw shifting shadows on the floor.
All things were just the same as they had been the year before, when she
had woke to the joy of being a girl of sixteen.
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