absorbing idea that she must watch all the days through and all the years
through for the coming of the dead man and the lost brig.

Bébée put the lace patterns in her basket, and trotted home, her sabots
clattering on the stones.

"What it must be to care for any one like that!" she thought, and by some
vague association of thought that she could not have pursued, she lifted
the leaves and looked at the moss-rosebud.

It was quite dead.




CHAPTER VII.


As she got clear of the city and out on her country road, a shadow Fell
across her in the evening light.

"Have you had a good day, little one?" asked a voice that made her stop
with a curious vague expectancy and pleasure.

"It is you!" she said, with a little cry, as she saw her friend of the
silk stockings leaning on a gate midway in the green and solitary road
that leads to Laeken.

"Yes, it is I," he answered, as he joined her. "Have you forgiven me,
Bébée?"