Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-07
CHAPTER XX

The wheat was reaped in the fields, and the brown earth turned afresh. The white and purple chrysanthemums bloomed against the howerless rose bushes, and the little gray Michaelmas daisy fourished where the dead carnations had spread their glories. Leaves began to fall and chilly winds to sigh among the willows; the squirrels began to store away their nuts, and the poor to pick up the broken, bare boughs.
 "Ho said he would como before winter" thought Bebee every day, when she ross and felt each morning cooler and grayer than the one before it; winter was near.
 Her little feet already were cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin already sang in the twigs of the scar sweet briar; but she had the brave, sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt-oh! mo- she did not doubt, she was only tired.
 Tired of the strange, sleepless, feverish nights; tired of the long, dull, empty days; tired of watching down the barren, leafless lane; tired of hearkening breathless to each step on the rustling dead leaves; tired of looking always, always, always, into the ruddy autumn evenings and the cold autumn starlight, and never hearing what she listened for, never seeing what she sought; tired as child may be, lost in q wood, and wearily wearing its small strength and breaking its young heart in search of the track forever missed, of the home forever beyond the hori- Zon.
 Still she did her work and kept her courage
 So she toiied hard and learned much, and grew taller and very thin, and got a look ill her eyes like lost dogs, and yet never lost heart or wandered in tho task that he had set her, or in her faith in his return
 "Burn the books, Bebec," whispered the children again and again, clinging to her skirts. Burn the wicked, silent things Since you have had them you never sing, or romp, or laugh, and you look so white-so whitc'
 Bebee kissed them, but kept to her books.
 Jeannot going by from the forest night after night saw tho light twinkling in the hut window, and sometimes crept softly up and looked through tho chinks of the wooden shutter, and saw her leaning over some big old volume with her pretty brows drawn to- gether, and her mouth shut close in earnest effort, and he would curse the man who had changed her so, and go away with rage in his anything, but knowing that Lever would Bebee's little brown hand lie in love within his own
 Nor even ill friendship, for he had rashly spoken rough words against the stranger from Rubes' land, and Bebee ever since then had passed him by with grave simple greeting, and when he had brought her ill tinad gifts barrow load of fagots had thanked him, but had bidden him take the wood home to his mother.
 ''You think evil things of me, BebecY good Jeannot had pleaded, with Q sob in his voice; and she had answered gently:
 ''No; but do not speak to me, that is all"
 Then he had cursed her absent lover, and Bebee gone within and closed her door. She had no idea that the people thought ill of her. They were cold to her, and such cold ness made her heart ache little more. But the one great love in her possessed her so strongly that all other things wero half un- real
 She did her daily house work from sheer habit, and she studied because he had told her to do it and because, with tho sweet, stub born, credulous faith of her youth, she never doubted that he would return. Otherwise there was no perception of real life in her; she dreamed and prayed, and prayed and dreamed, and never ceased to do either ono or the other, even when she was scattering potato peels to the fowls, or shak- ing carrots loose of the soil, or sweeping the snow from her hut door, or going out in the raw, dark dawn as the single little sad bell of St. Guido tolled through the stiffness for the first mass
 For though even Father Francis looked angered at her because he thought she was stubborn and hid some truth and some shame from him at confession, yet she went reso- lutely and oftener than ever to kneel in the dusty, dusky, crunbling old church, for it was all she could do for him who was absent 50 she thought-and she did not feel quite 90 far away from him when she was beseech- ing Christ to have care of his soul and of his body.
 All her pretty dreams were dead. She never heard any story in the robins song or saw any promise in the sunset clouds To be continued.