"My mother was a flower."

"You are a flower, at any rate," they would say in return; and Bébée had
been always quite content.

But now she was doubtful; she was rather perplexed than sorrowful.

These good friends of hers seemed to see some new sin about her. Perhaps,
after all, thought Bébée, it might have been better to have had a human
mother who would have taken care of her now that old Antoine was dead,
instead of those beautiful, gleaming, cold water-lilies which went to
sleep on their green velvet beds, and did not certainly care when the
thorns ran into her fingers, or the pebbles got in her wooden shoes.

In some vague way, disgrace and envy--the twin Discords of the
world--touched her innocent cheek with their hot breath, and as the
evening fell, Bébée felt very lonely and a little wistful.

She had been always used to run out in the pleasant twilight-time among
the flowers and water them, Antoine filling the can from the well; and
the neighbors would come and lean against the little low wall, knitting
and gossiping; and the big dogs, released from harness, would poke their
heads through the wicket for a crust; and the children would dance and
play Colin Maillard on the green by the water; and she, when the flowers
were no longer thirsted, would join them, and romp and dance and sing the
gayest of them all.

But now the buckets hung at the bottom of the well, and the flowers
hungered in vain, and the neighbors held aloof, and she shut to the hut