coaster brought that bit of beam away, with the Fleur d'Epine
writ clear upon it.

"But you see I never _know_ my man is dead.

"Any day--who can say?--any of those ships may bring him aboard of her,
and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come running up the stairs
as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, 'Annemie, Annemie, here
is more flax to spin, here is more hose to weave!' For that was always
his homeward word; no matter whether he had had fair weather or foul, he
always knotted the flax to his mast-head.

"So you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found
me away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him.

"And I could not do without the window, you know. I can watch all the
brigs come in; and I can smell the shipping smell that I have loved all
the days of my life; and I can see the lads heaving, and climbing, and
furling, and mending their bits of canvas, and hauling their flags up
and down.

"And then who can say?--the sea never took him, I think--I think I shall
hear his voice before I die.

"For they do say that God is good."

Bebee sweeping very noiselessly, listened, and her eyes grew wistful and
wondering. She had heard the story a thousand times; always in different
words, but always the same little tale, and she knew how old Annemie was
deaf to all the bells that tolled the time, and blind to all the
whiteness of her hair, and all the wrinkles of her face, and only
thought of her sea-slain lover as he had been in the days of her youth.

* * *

When we suffer very much ourselves, anything that smiles in the sun
seems cruel--a child, a bird, a dragonfly--nay, even a fluttering
ribbon, or a spear-grass that waves in the wind.

* * *

Bebee, whose religion was the sweetest and vaguest mingling of Pagan and
Christian myths, and whose faith in fairies and in saints was exactly
equal in strength and in ignorance--Bebee filled the delf pot anew
carefully, then knelt down on the turf in that little green corner, and
prayed in devout hopeful childish good faith to the awful unknown Powers
who were to her only as gentle guides and kindly playmates.

Was she too familiar with the Holy Mother?

She was almost fearful that she was; but then the Holy Mother loved
flowers so well, Bebee could not feel aloof from her, nor be afraid.

"When one cuts the best blossoms for her, and tries to be good, and
never tells a lie,