Not even the starling as he flew on her pillow and called her.
"Give her rest," they all said; and one by one moved away, being poor folk and hard working, and unable to lose a whole day.
Mere Krebs stayed with her, and Jeannot sat in the porch where her little spinning-wheel stood, and rocked himself to and fro; in vain agony, powerless.
He had done all he could, and it was of no avail.
Then people who had loved her, hearing, came up the green lanes from the city--the cobbler and the tinman, and the old woman who sold saints' pictures by the Broodhuis.

The Varnhart children hung about the garden wicket, frightened and sobbing.

Old Jehan beat his knees with his hands, and said only over and over again, "Another dead--another dead!--the red mill and I see them all dead!" The long golden day drifted away, and the swans swayed to and fro, and the willows grew silver in the sunshine.
Bebee, only, lay quite still and never spoke.

The starling sat above her head; his wings drooped, and he was silent too.
Towards sunset Bebee raised herself and called aloud: they ran to her.
"Get me a rosebud--one with the moss round it," she said to them.
They went out into the garden, and brought her one wet with dew.
She kissed it, and laid it in one of her little wooden shoes that stood upon the bed.
"Send them to him," she said wearily; "tell him I walked all the way." Then her head drooped; then momentary consciousness died out: the old dull lifeless look crept over her face again like the shadow of death.
The starling spread his broad black wings above her head.

She lay quite still once more.