To-morrow I will finish my painting; but I will not offend you by any more gifts." Bebee lifted her drooped head, and looked him in the eyes eagerly, with a certain sturdy resolve and timid wistfulness intermingled in her look.
"Sir, see, you speak to me quite wrongly," she said with a quick accent, that had pride as well as pain in it.

"Say it was kind to bring me what I wished for; yes, it was kind I know; but you never saw me till last night, and I cannot tell even your name; and it is very wrong to lie to any one, even to a little thing like me; and I am only Bebee, and cannot give you anything back, because I have only just enough to feed myself and the starling, and not always that in winter.

I thank you very much for what you wished to do; but if I had taken those things, I think you would have thought me very mean and full of greed; and Antoine always said, 'Do not take what you cannot pay--not ever what you cannot pay--that is the way to walk with pure feet.' Perhaps I spoke ill, because they spoil me, and they say I am too swift to say my mind.

But I am not thankless--not thankless, indeed--it is only I could not take what I cannot pay.

That is all.