Annémie's hand shakes and her eyes are dim, and she pricks the pattern
all awry and never perceives it; it would break her heart if one showed
her so, but the Baës would not take them as they are; they are of no use
at all. So I prick them out myself on fresh paper, and the Baës thinks it
is all her doing, and pays her the same money, and she is quite content.
And as I carry the patterns to and fro for her, because she cannot walk,
it is easy to cheat her like that; and it is no harm to cheat _so_, you
know." He was silent.

"You are a good little girl, Bébée, I can see." he said at last, with a
graver sound in his voice. "And who is this Annémie for whom you do so
much? an old woman, I suppose."

"Oh, yes, quite old; incredibly old. Her man was drowned at sea sixty
years ago, and she watches for his brig still, night and morning."

"The dog's heart. No doubt he beat her, and had a wife in fifty other
ports."

"Oh, no!" said Bébée, with a little cry, as though the word against the
dead man hurt her. "She has told me so much of him. He was as good as
good could be, and loved her so, and between the voyages they were so
happy. Surely that must have been sixty years now, and she is so sorry
still, and still will not believe that he was drowned."

He looked down on her with a smile that had a certain pity in it.

"Well, yes; there are women like that, I believe. But be very sure, my
dear, he beat her. Of the two, one always holds the whip and uses it, the
other crouches."