So Bébée stayed there.

It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with
its black timbers, and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and
majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. That Bébée did not know,
but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis,
selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting
her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noonday like any other
market girl, but at times glancing up to the stately towers and the blue
sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler whisper
together, "What does she see there?--the dead people or the angels?"

The truth was that even Bébée herself did not know very surely what she
saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd
that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her.

But none did.

No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker
and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them
sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in
reverence be it spoken, of course.




CHAPTER III.


"I remembered it was your name-day, child Here are half a dozen eggs,"