She went to the casement, and it seemed as if the aged trees formed a long, long aisle out from it, narrow and bright, and at the end was a sunny glade.
"I see a young man," she said, "laughing and singing to himself in the sun."
"Has he suffered?" asked the Bee-woman.
"No, he is hardly more than a boy. His hair curls like a boy's. His face has never known a care."
"What is he doing?" asked the Bee-woman.
"He is eating fruit and painting a picture on a white cottage wall. The children and the old men are watching him."
"Do you watch him, too," said the Bee-woman, folding her hands in her lap.
Soon she gave a little cry.
"What! what!" she murmured, "how can he do that—he is but a boy!"
"Is he weeping?" asked the Bee-woman. "Has he shut out the world?"