door and listened to the rain which began to fall, and cried herself to
sleep all alone in her tiny kingdom.

When the dawn came the sun rose red and warm; the grass and boughs
sparkled; a lark sang; Bébée awoke sad in heart, indeed, for her lost old
friend, but brighter and braver.

"Each of them wants to get something out of me," thought the child.
"Well, I will live alone, then, and do my duty, just as he said. The
flowers will never let any real harm come, though they do look so
indifferent and smiling sometimes, and though not one of them hung their
heads when his coffin was carried through them yesterday."

That want of sympathy in the flower troubled her.

The old man had loved them so well; and they had all looked as glad as
ever, and had laughed saucily in the sun, and not even a rosebud turned
the paler as the poor still stiffened limbs went by in the wooden shell.

"I suppose God cares; but I wish they did." said Bébée, to whom the
garden was more intelligible than Providence.

"Why do you not care?" she asked the pinks, shaking the raindrops off
their curled rosy petals.

The pinks leaned lazily against their sticks, and seemed to say, "Why
should we care for anything, unless a slug be eating us?--_that_ is
real woe, if you like."

Bébée, without her sabots on, wandered thoughtfully among the sweet wet