" thought Bebee, "I am quite sure, as she loves the
lilies, that she will never altogether forget me."

* * *

The loveliest love is that which dreams high above all storms, unsoiled
by all burdens; but, perhaps, the strongest love is that which, whilst
it adores, drags its feet through mire, and burns its brow in heat for
the thing beloved.

* * *

It is, perhaps, the most beautiful square in all Northern Europe, with
its black timbers and gilded carvings, and blazoned windows, and
majestic scutcheons, and fantastic pinnacles. This Bebee did not know,
but she loved it, and she sat resolutely in front of the Broodhuis,
selling her flowers, smiling, chatting, helping the old woman, counting
her little gains, eating her bit of bread at noon-day like any other
market girl; but, at times, glancing up to the stately towers and the
blue sky, with a look on her face that made the old tinker and cobbler
whisper together--"What does she see there?--the dead people or the
angels?"

The truth was that even Bebee herself did not know very surely what she
saw--something that was still nearer to her than even this kindly crowd
that loved her. That was all she could have said had anybody asked her.

But none did.

No one wanted to hear what the dead said; and for the angels, the tinker
and the cobbler were of opinion that one had only too much of them
sculptured about everywhere, and shining on all the casements--in
reverence be it spoken of course.

_FAME._

"There is no soul in them," he muttered, and he set down his lamp and
frowned; a sullen mechanical art made him angered like an insult to
heaven; and these were soulless; their drawing was fine, their anatomy
faultless, their proportions and perspective excellent; but there all
merit ended. They were worse than faulty--they were commonplace. There
is no sin in Art so deadly as that.

* * *

He had been only a poor lad, a coppersmith's son, here in Munich; one
among many, and beaten and cursed at home very often for mooning over
folly when others were hard at work. But he had minded neither curse nor
blow. He had always said to himself, "I am a painter." Whilst camps were
soaked with blood and echoing only the trumpets of war, he had only seen
the sweet divine smile of Art. He had gone barefoot to Italy for love of
it, and had studied, and laboured, and worshipped, and been full of the
fever of great e