Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-20

to forget in sleep that she was supperless and as cold as a frozen robin.
 So that vixen Antoine Macs grew sick and died, more from age and weakness than any real disease, there were only few silver crowns ill tho brown jug hidden in the thatch, and the hut itself, with its patch of ground, was all that he could leave to Bebee.
 ''Live in it, little one, and take nobody in it to worry you, and be good to the bird and the goat, and be sure to keep tho flowers blowing,n said the old man with his last breath; and sobbing her heart out by his bed side, Bebee vowed to do his bidding.
 She was not quite fourteen then, and when she had laid her old friend to rest in the rough green graveyard about St Guido she was very sorrowful and lonely-poor little bright Bebee, who had never hardly known 8 worse woe than to run the thorns of the roses into her fingers, or to cry because thrush was found starved to death in the snow
 Bebee went home and sat down in a corner and thought. ... -..
 The hut was her own, and her own the little green triangle just then crowded with its May day blossom in all the colors of the rain bow. She was to live in it, and never let the flowers die-so he had said; good, rough old Ugly Antoine Macs, who had been to her as father, mother, country, king and law. The sun was shining.
 Through the little square of the lattice she could sec the great tulips opening in the grass and bough of the apple tree swaying in the wind. A chaffinch clung to the bough and swung 70 and fro singing. The door stood open, with the broad, bright day beaming through; and Bebee's little world came streaming in with it-the world which dwelt in the half dozen cottages that fringed this green lane of hers like beavers nests pushed ~xl- I@o A-% They came, some six or eight of them, all women; trim, clean, plain Brabant peasants, hard working, kindly of nature and shrewd in their own simple matters; people who labored in the fields all the day long, or worked themselves blind over the lace pillows in the city.
 You are too young to live alone, Bebee," said the first of them. My old mother shall come and keep house for you"
 ''Nay-better come and live with me, Be- bee," said the second. "I will give you bit and drop, and clothing too, for the right to your plot of ground"
 ''That is to cheat her." said the third. "Hark here, Bebee; my sister, who is a lone woman, as you know well, shall come and | bide with you, and ask you nothing-nothing at all-only you shall just give her a crust, perhaps, and few flowers to sell sometimes '" ''No, mo-" said the fourth; that will not 1 do. You let me have the garden and the hut, 1 Bebee, and my sons shall till the place for l you; and I will live with you myself, and leave the boys the cabin-so you will have l all the gain, do you not see, dear little one?" "Poohl" said the fifth, stouter and better clothed than the rest. 'You are all eager for | your own good, not for hers. Now I-Father 1 Francis says we should all do we would be 1 done by-I will take Bebee to live with me, | all for nothing; and we will root the flowers l up and plant it with good cabbages and pota- toes and salad plants. And I will stable my cows in the hut to sweeten it after @ dead man, and will take my chance of making money out of 1t, and no one can speak more fair than that when one sees what weather is and thinks what insects do; and 1 all the year round, winter and summer, Be- bee here will want for nothing, and have to l take no care for herself whatever" 1 She who spoke, Mere Krebs, the l best to do woman in the little lane, having two cows of her own and earrings of solid silver, and green cart, and a big dog that took the milk into Brussels She was heard, therefore, with respect, and short silence followed her words.
 But it was very short; and a hubbub of voices crossed each other after it as the speak CTS grew hotter against one another and 1 more eager to convince each other of the dis
 
 | aid.
 l Through it all Bebee sat quite quiet on the edge of the little truckle bed, with her eyes l fixed on the apple bough and the singing chaf- l finch.
 She heard them all patiently.
 They were all her good friends. friends old and true. This one had given her cherries 8 score of summers. The other had brought her a little waxen Jesus at the Kermesse. AL | 1 taken her to her first communion. She who wanted her sister to have the crust and the flowers, had brought her beautiful painted l book of hours that had cost whole franc. l Another had given her the solitary wonder, travel and foreign feast of her whole life-a day fifteen miles away at the fair at Mechlin. The last speaker of all had danced her on her knee a hundred times in babyhood, and told her legends, and let her ride in the green cart behind big, curly coated Tambour.
 Bebee did not doubt that these trusty old friends meant we'll by her, and yet certai, heavy sense fell on her that in all these coun- sells there was not the same whole hearted and frank goodness that had prompted the gift to her of the waxen Jesus and the Ker-
 messe of Mechlin.
 Bebee did not reason, because she was toe
 little thing and too trustful; but she felt i'll
 vague sorrowful fashion that they were
 all of them trying to make some benefit out
 of her poor little heritage with small regard
 for herself at the root of their speculations.
 Bebee was child, wholly child; body
 and soul were both as fresh in her as a golden
 crocus just born out of the SHOWS. But she
 was not little fool, though people some
 times called her so because she would sit i1
 the moments of her leisure with her blue eyes
 on the far away clouds like a thing in a
 dream. ..... She heard them patiently till the cackle of
 shrill voices had exhausted itself, and the si1
 women stood on the sunny mud floor of the
 hut cycling each other with venomous glances
 for though they were good neighbors at al
 times, each, in this matter, was hungry fol
 the advantages to be got out of old Antoineh
 plot of ground They were very poor; they
 toiled in the scorched or frozen fields al
 weathers, or spent from dawn to nightfal
 boring over their cobweb lace; and to save sou or gain cabbage was of moment tt
 them only second to the keeping of theil
 souls secure of heaven by Lenten mass ane Easter psalm.
 Bebee listened to them all, and the tear