"And are never dull?"
"I have no time, and I do not think I would be if I had time—there is so much to think of, and one never can understand."
"But you must be very brave and laborious to do all your work yourself. Is it possible a child like you can spin, and wash, and bake, and garden, and do everything?"
"Oh, many do more than I. Babette's eldest daughter is only twelve, and she does much more, because she has all the children to look after; and they are very, very poor; they often have nothing but a stew of nettles and perhaps a few snails, days together."
"That is lean, bare, ugly, gruesome poverty; there is plenty of that everywhere. But you, Bébée—you are an idyll."
Bébée looked across the hut and smiled, and broke her thread. She did not know what he meant, but if she were anything that pleased him, it was well.
"Who were those beautiful women?" she said suddenly, the color mounting into her cheeks.
"What women, my dear?"
"Those I saw at the window with you, the other night—they had jewels."
"Oh!—women, tiresome enough. If I had seen you, I would have dropped you some fruit. Poor little Bébée! Did you go by, and I never knew?"