Bébée stood and looked from the box to the Broodhuis, from the Broodhuis
to the box; she glanced around, but no one had come there so early as
she, except the tinker, who was busy quarrelling with his wife and
letting his smelting fire burn a hole in his breeches.

"The box was certainly for her, since it was set upon her chair?"--Bébée
pondered a moment; then little by little opened the lid.

Within, on a nest of rose-satin, were two pair of silk stockings!--real
silk!--with the prettiest clocks worked up their sides in color!

Bébée gave a little scream, and stood still, the blood hot in her cheeks;
no one heard her, the tinker's wife, who alone was near, having just
wished Heaven to send a judgment on her husband, was busy putting out his
smoking smallclothes. It is a way that women and wives have, and they
never see the bathos of it.

The place filled gradually.

The customary crowds gathered. The business of the day began underneath
the multitudinous tones of the chiming bells. Bébée's business began too;
she put the box behind her with a beating heart, and tied up her flowers.

It was the fairies, of course! but they had never set a rush-bottomed
chair on its legs before, and this action of theirs frightened her.

It was rather an empty morning. She sold little, and there was the more
time to think.