Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-04
CHAPTER XIV.

In the deserted lane by the swans water, under the willows, the horses waited to take him to Mechlin little, quick, rough horses, with round brass bells, in the Flemish fash ion, and gay harness, and low char-a-banc, in which wolf skin and red rugs, and all a painters many necessities, were tossed to- gether
 He lifted her in, and the little horses flew fast through the green country, ringing chimes at each step, till they plunged into the deep glades of the woods of Cambre and Soignies.
 Soignies is only a Flemish forest ill a plain, throwing its shadow over corn fields and cat tie pastures, with no panorama beyond it and no wonders in its depth. But it is fresh, bold, beautiful forest for all that.
 To Bebee it was as an enchanted land, and every play of light and shade every hare speeding across the paths, every thrush sing ing in the leaves, every little dog rose or harebell that blossomed i'll the thickets, was to her a treasure, picture, poem, de light.
 He had seen girls thus in the woods of Vim cennes and of Versailles iii the student days of his youth; little work girls fresh from chalets of the Jura or from vine hung huts of the Loire, who had brought their poor little charms to perish in Paris, and who dwelt un- der the hot tiles and amidst the gilded shoI signs till they were as pale and thin as their own starved balsams; and who, when they saw the green woods, laughed and cried a little, and thought of the broad sun swept fields, end wished that they were back again behind their drove of COWS, or weedine among the green grapes
 But those little work girls had been mere homely daisies, and daisies already with the dust of the pavement and of the dancing gardens upon them.
 Bebee was as pure and fresh as these dew wet dog roses that she found ill the thickets of thorn.
 He had meant to treat her as he had usee to do those work girls-a little wine, a littl. wooing, a little folly and passion, idle as { butterfly and brief a rainbow-one mid summer day and night-then handful O. gold, caress, good morrow, and forgetful ness ever afterwards-that was what he hat meant when he had brought her out to thu forest of Soignies
 But-sha was different. this child.
 He made the great sketch of her for hi Gretchen, sitting on a moss ground trunk with marguerites in her hand; he sent fo their breakfast far into the woods, and say her set her pearly teeth into early peache and costly sweetmeats; ho wandered with he hithcr and thither, and told her tales cut o
  cynical, poetical manner that was character istic of him, being half artificial and hal sorrowful, as his temper was.
 But Bebee-all unconscious, intoxicatet with happiness, and yet touched by it int that vague sadness which the summer SUI brings with it even to young things, if the, have soul in them-Bebee said to him wha the work girls of Paris never had done.
 Beautiful things; things fantastic, igno rant, absurd, very simple, very unreasonabl oftentimes, but things beautiful always, an' sometimes even very wise by wisdom no of the world; ly a certain light divine tha does shine now and then as through an ala baster lamp, through minds that have n grossness to obscure them. Her words were not equal to the burden o her thoughts at times, but he knew how t tal,o the pearl of the thought from the broker shell and tangled sea weed of her simple ur tutorod speech.
 If there be God anywhere" he though to himself, "this little Fleming is very nea him."
 She was so near that although he had n belief in any God, he could not deal with be as he had used to do with the work girls i the primrose paths of old Vincennes