CHAPTER XVII.
Then he took her to dine at one of the wooden cafes under the trees.
There was a little sheet of water in front of it and a gay garden around.
There was a balcony and a wooden stairway; there were long trellised arbors, and little white tables, and great rosebushes like her own at home.

They had an arbor all to themselves; a cool sweet-smelling bower of green, with a glimpse of scarlet from the flowers of some twisting beans.
They had a meal, the like of which she had never seen; such a huge melon in the centre of it, and curious wines, and coffee or cream in silver pots, or what looked like silver to her--"just like the altar-vases in the church," she said to herself.
"If only the Varnhart children were here!" she cried; but he did not echo the wish.
It was just sunset.

There was a golden glow on the little bit of water.
On the other side of the garden some one was playing a guitar.

Under a lime-tree some girls were swinging, crying, Higher! higher! at each toss.
In a longer avenue of trellised green, at a long table, there was a noisy party of students and girls of the city; their laughter was mellowed by distance as it came over the breadth of the garden, and they sang, with fresh shrill Flemish voices, songs from an opera bouffe of La Monnaie.
It was all pretty, and gay, and pleasant.
There was everywhere about an air of light-hearted enjoyment.

Bebee sat with a wondering look in her wide-opened eyes, and all the natural instincts of her youth, that were like curled-up fruit buds in her, unclosed softly to the light of joy.
"Is life always like this in your Rubes' land ?" she asked him; that vague far-away country of which she never asked him anything more definite, and which yet was so clear before her fancy.
"Yes," he made answer to her.