life.




CHAPTER XIV.


The next day, waking with a radiant little soul as a bird in a forest
wakes in summer Bébée was all alone in the lane by the swans' water. In
the gray of the dawn all the good folk except herself and lame old Jehan
had tramped off to a pilgrimage, Liége way, which the bishop of the city
had enjoined on all the faithful as a sacred duty.

Bébée doing her work, singing, thinking how good God was, and dreaming
over a thousand fancies of the wonderful stories he had told her, and of
the exquisite delight that would lie for her in watching for him all
through the shining hours, Bébée felt her little heart leap like a
squirrel as the voice that was the music of heaven to her called through
the stillness,--"Good day, pretty one! you are as early as the lark,
Bébée. I go to Mayence, so I thought I would look at you one moment as I
pass."

Bébée ran down through the wet grass in a tumult of joy. She had never
seen him so early in the day--never so early as this, when nobody was up
and stirring except birds and beasts and peasant folk.

She did not know how pretty she looked herself; like a rain-washed wild
rose; her feet gleaming with dew, her cheeks warm with health and joy;
her sunny clustering hair free from the white cap and tumbling a little