begin her studies with: but it was a grand copy, full of beautiful
drawings nearly at every page.

It was hard work for her to read at first, but the drawings enticed and
helped her, and she soon sank breathlessly into the charm of the story.
Many words she did not know; many passages were beyond her comprehension;
she was absolutely ignorant, and had nothing but the force of her own
fancy to aid her.

But though stumbling at every step, as a lame child through a flowery
hillside in summer, she was happy as the child would be, because of the
sweet, strange air that was blowing about her, and the blossoms that she
could gather into her hand, so rare, so wonderful, and yet withal so
familiar, because they _were_ blossoms.

With her fingers buried in her curls, with her book on her knee, with the
moon rays white and strong on the page, Bébée sat entranced as the hours
went by; the children's play shouts died away; the babble of the gossip
at the house doors ceased; people went by and called good night to her;
the little huts shut up one by one, like the white and purple convolvulus
cups in the hedges.

Bébée did not stir, nor did she hear them; she was deaf even to the
singing of the nightingales in the willows, where she sat in her little
thatch above, and the wet garden-ways beyond her.

A heavy step came tramping down the lane. A voice called to her,--

"What are you doing, Bébée, there, this time of the night? It is on the
strike of twelve."