"Yes, oh, yes;" assented Bee quickly. "I'd like--I'd like--" And she
burst into tears.

"Excuse me a moment, madam, I beg," said the scientist rising. He drew
his daughter's hand through his arm, and quietly led her from the room,
up the stairs to her own chamber.

"I do not believe, Beatrice, that you are any more concerned in this
matter than is Percival," he remarked as he opened the door for her. "I
can see that you consider it right to shield him as well as yourself by
refusing an explanation. I shall ask you nothing further concerning it.
I can only say how deeply I regret that you should have done anything
that would give pain to Mrs. Medulla."

"Father, father," sobbed Bee, turning to him appealingly, "it isn't, it
isn't as you think. Oh, do trust me a little."

"Do you think you have proved worthy of being trusted, Beatrice?"

"No;" admitted the girl humbly. "I don't deserve it at all when I was so
careless; but this is different. You ought not to judge me harshly until
you know all about it."

"I do not wish to judge you harshly in anything, my child. In the
present instance nothing can be done until the circumstances are known.
As you refuse to tell them you must accept whatever judgment your
actions call for. I think if I were you I should lie down for a time.
You seem quite warm and a little upset. Try to compose yourself."

"I will, father." Bee entered the room with a sigh. He had not yet
forgiven her the loss of the butterfly, she could see. She sat down and
buried her face in her hands as the door closed behind him, and gave way
to a flood of tears.

For what lay at the bottom of her bitterness? It was the knowledge that
with just a little more carefulness on her part none of this trouble
would have come upon her. Grief when caused by one's own carelessness is
harder to bear than that which comes from unfortunate circumstance, so
now Bee took herself to task severely.

"Mrs. Medulla told me that I was liable to spoil everything," she
mused with some bitterness. "Oh, dear! just when things were going
nicely I had to spoil it all by a few moments of carelessness. And if
Percival doesn't explain his mother will never like me again; while
father--" She choked. Her heart ached with longing for her father's
forgiveness.

"Poor father," she exclaimed suddenly as she went to the mirror to put
up her hair. "If he is as disappointed in me as I am in Percival I know
just how he feels. I knew that Perci