Bébée leaned out a moment from her own little casement ere she too went to rest.
Through an open lattice there sounded the murmur of some little child's prayer; the wind sighed among the willows; the nightingales sang on in the dark—all was still.
Hard work awaited her on the morrow, and on all the other days of the year.
She was only a little peasant—she must sweep, and spin, and dig, and delve, to get daily her bit of black bread,—but that night she was as happy as a little princess in a fairy tale; happy in her playmates, in her flowers, in her sixteen years, in her red shoes, in her silver buckles, because she was half a woman; happy in the dewy leaves, in the singing birds, in the hush of the night, in the sense of rest, in the fragrance of flowers, in the drifting changes of moon and cloud; happy because she was half a woman, because she was half a poet, because she was wholly a poet.
"Oh, dear swans, how good it is to be sixteen!—how good it is to live at all!—do you not tell the willows so?" said Bébée to the gleam of silver under the dark leaves by the water's side, which showed her where her friends were sleeping, with their snowy wings closed over their stately heads, and the veiled gold and ruby of their eyes.
The swans did not awake to answer.
Only the nightingale answered from the willows, with Desdemona's song.
But Bébée had never heard of Desdemona, and the willows had no sigh for her.
"Good night!" she said, softly, to all the green dewy sleeping world, and then she lay down and slept herself.—The nightingale sang on, and the willows trembled.