Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-11

She kneR do,cn at his feet in the dust.
 She was very footsore; very weary; very hungry So often; but sho was in France-in his country-and her spirit rose with tLe sense of that nearness to him.
 After all God was so good to her; there were fine bright days and nights; q few showers had fallen, but merely passing ones; the air was So cool and so balmy that it served her almost as food: and she seldom found people so unkind that they refused for her single little sou to give her a crust of bread and let her lie in an outhouse.
 After all God was very good and by the sixteenth or seventeenth day she would be in tho city of Paris
 She was little light headed at times from insufficient nourishment; especially after waking from strange dreams in unfamiliar places; sometimes the soil felt tremulous under her and the sky spun round but she struggled against the feeling and kept a brave heart and tried to be afraid of nothing
 Sometimes at night she thought she saw old Annenlie But what if 1 do?" she said to herself; "Annemie never will hurt me-"
 And now, as she grew nearer her goal, her natural buoyency of spirit returned as it had never done to her since the evening that he had kissed and left her AS her body grew lighter and moro exhausted, her fancy grew keener and more dominant. All things of the earth and air spoke to her as she went along as they had used to do. All that she had learned from tho books in the long cold months came to her clear and wonderful She was not so very ignorant nowAigncrant, indeed, beside him-but still knowing some thing that would make her able to read to him if he liked it, and to understand if he talked of great things.
 She had no fixed thought of what she would be to him when she reached him.
 She fancied she would wait on him, and tend him, and make him well, and be caressed by him, and get all gracious pretty things of leaf and blossom about him, and kneel at his feet, and be quite happy if he only touched her now and then with his lips-her thoughts went no further than that-her love for him was of that intensity and absorption in which nothing but itself is remembered.
 When creature loves much, even when it s as little and as simple q soul as Bebec, the world and all its people and ell its laws and ways naught. They cease to exist they arc as though they had never becn Whoever recollects an outside world may play with passion, or may idlo with senti- ment, but does not love.
 She did not hear what the villagers said to her. She did not see the streets of the towns as she passed them. She kept herself clean always and broke fast now and then by sheer instinct of habit, nothing more. She had nc perception what she did, except of walking walking walking always, and seeing the white road go by like pale ribbons unrolled She got dreamy, intense sleepless light ir her blue eyes that frightened some of those | she passed. They thought she had been l fever stricken and was not ill her senses. | So she went across the dreary lowlands nory Dy,th hn,. ho{c E,,% ! ing out her patience and her courage She was very dusty and jaded. Her woole1 | skirt was stained with weather and torn with | briers. But she had managed always to wasl | her cap white ill brook water, and she hao managed always to keep her pretty brish, curls soft and silken-for he had liked then so much, and he would soon draw then through his hand again. So she told herself Q thousand times to give her strength wher tho mist would como over her sight, and tn, earth would seem to tremble as she went Or the fifteenth day from the night when she hae left her hut by the swans water Bebee saw Paris.
 | Shining away in the sun; white and gold among woods and gardens she saw Paris. | She was so tired-oh. so tired-but sh, could not rest now. There were bells rinr1n. always in her ears, and heavy pain alway | in her head. But what of thatAshe was st near to him.
 Are you i'll, you little thingr woma, asked her who was gathering early cherrie in the outskirts of the great city. Bebee looked at her and smiled: "I do no 'know-I am happy"
 And she went onward
 It was evening. The sun had set She hat not eaten for twenty-four hours. But sh could not pause for anything now Sh crossed the gleaming river and she heard tn cathedral chimes. Paris in all its glory wa about her, but she took no more note of i than pigeon that flies through it intent O, reaching homo.
 No one looked at or stopped her; a littl dusty peasant with bundle on a stick ove
 her shoulder The click -clack of her wooden shoes on tn
 hot pavements made none look up; little rus ties canae up every day like this to mak their fortunes in Paris. Some grew int golden painted silsAl flowers, the convolvul of their brief summer days; and some drifte. into tho Seine water, rusted, wind tossed
 fallen leaves that were wanted of no man
 Anyhow, it was so common to see them
 pretty but homely things, with their nois
 shoes and their little all in bundle, tha
 no one even looked once at Bebee
 She was not bewildered. As she had gon
 through her own city, only thinking of tn
 roses in her basket and of old Annemie in he
 garre., so she went through Paris, onl