There was the length of the garden between them, and Bébée did not hear
as she sat on the edge of her roof with that light dreamful enjoyment
of air and sky and coolness, and all the beauty of the dawning day, which
the sweet vague sense of a personal happiness will bring with it to the
dullest and the coldest.

"You are cross, Jeannot, that is what it is," she said, after a while.
"You should not be cross; you are too big and strong and good. Go in and
get my bowl of bread and milk for me, and hand it to me up here. It is so
pleasant. It is as nice as being perched on an apple-tree."

Jeannot went in obediently and handed up her breakfast to her, looking at
her with shy, worshipping eyes. But his face was overcast, and he sighed
heavily as he took up his hatchet and turned away; for he was the sole
support of his mother and sisters, and if he did not do his work in
Soignies they would starve at home.

"You will be seeing that stranger again?" he asked her.

"Yes!" she answered with a glad triumph in her eyes; not thinking at all
of him as she spoke. "You ought to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I
will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear
big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad
temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by
snapping at it sharp and hard; that is what Father Francis says."

Bébée, having delivered her little piece of wisdom, broke her bread into
her milk and ate it, lifting her face to the fresh wind and tossing
crumbs to the wheeling swallows, and watching the rose-bushes nod and
toss below in the breeze, and thinking vaguely how happy a thing it was