noon
But the next noon-time brought him to the market stall , and the next also , and so the summer days slipped away , and Bébée was quite happy if she saw him in the morning time , to give him a fresh rose , or at evening by the gates , or under the beech-trees , when he brought her a new book , and sauntered awhile up the green lane beside her . An innocent , unconscious love like Bébée 's wants so little food to make it all content . Such mere trifles are beautiful and sweet to it . Such slender stray gleams of light suffice to make a broad , bright golden noon of perfect joy around it . All the delirium , and fever , and desire , and despair , that are in maturer passion , are far away from it : far as is the flash of the meteor across sultry skies from the blue forget-me-not down in the brown meadow brook . It was very wonderful to Bébée that he , this stranger from Rubes ' fairyland , could come at all to keep pace with her little clattering wooden shoes over the dust and the grass in the dim twilight time . The days went by in a trance of sweet amaze , and she kept count of the hours no more by the cuckoo-clock of the mill-house , or the deep chimes of the Brussels belfries ; but only by such moments as brought her a word from his lips , or even a glimpse of him from afar , across the crowded square .