they speak of, I suppose," said the Bee-woman.

[Pg 22]"But the world moves, mother," she said.

[Pg 22]

"That is to say, that it runs round and round, I suppose," said the Bee-woman, "but not that it gets any farther from the sun."

"But women have learned many new things since you were young, mother."

"That is to say, that they have all the more to teach their children, I suppose," said the Bee-woman, "and they had more than a little, before."

"Who spoke of children?" she cried harshly, "not I! I spoke of work—the world's work, that I am free to do!"

"So long as bees hive and seeds fly on the wind," said the Bee-woman, "the world has one work for you to do, and you are bound, not free, to do it!"

Then she sank on the floor beside the old woman and began to beg her, for it seemed to her, as often it seems in dreams, that before she could go any farther she must win over this one who stood between her and where she would go.

[Pg 23]"You think me vain," she cried, "but, indeed, with me this is no girlish fancy, mother. Men greater and wiser than I have told me that mine will be work for which the world will be the better."

[Pg 23]

"I think that they have spoken truly, my child," said the Bee-woman, "and that is why I was waiting for you."

"Then let me go and work!" she cried, and rose from her knees.

"Go quickly, indeed," said the Bee-woman, "but work with flesh and blood, as does God the Creator, not with paint and canvas, as does man, the mimic!"

Then this old bee woman grew tall and terrible to her, and she saw that she had been led into the wood as into a trap and that she must fight hard for her freedom.

"I do not know what you are!" she cried wildly, "but you talk like an old song mumbled over the hearthstone, and it is to the hearthstone that you would chain me. Was I given eyes that can sweep[Pg 24] the horizon only to turn them downward to that narrow hearth?"

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