Marthe, the carpenter's wife, came out from her gate, broom in hand.

"The Holy Saints keep you, Bébée; why, you are quite a woman now!"

The little children of Varnhart, the charcoal-burner, who were as poor as
any mouse in the old churches, rushed out of their little home up the
lane, bringing with them a cake stuck full of sugar and seeds, and tied
round with a blue ribbon, that their mother had made that very week, all
in her honor.

"Only see, Bébée! Such a grand cake!" they shouted, dancing down the
lane. "Jules picked the plums, and Jeanne washed the almonds, and
Christine took the ribbon off her own communion cap, all for you--all for
you; but you will let us come and eat it too?"

Old Gran'mère Bishot, who was the oldest woman about Laeken, hobbled
through the grass on her crutches and nodded her white shaking head, and
smiled at Bébée.

"I have nothing to give you, little one, except my blessing, if you care
for that."

Bébée ran out, breaking from the children, and knelt down in the wet
grass, and bent her pretty sunny head to the benediction.

Trine, the miller's wife, the richest woman of them all, called to the
child from the steps of the mill,--'

"A merry year, and the blessing of Heaven, Bébée! Come up, and here is my