o superintend the preparation of your
wardrobe, and it might be wise for you to spend the remaining time
there. Either that or else they must come here."

"Let them come here, father. I--I don't want to leave home before I
must."

There were no tears in her voice, but something in it caused her father
to say, not quite steadily:

"My daughter, be brave. Don't make it hard for me."

Beatrice looked at him quickly.

"Is it hard for you, father?"

"Harder than I would like you to know, child. You know why I must go.
Let us not dwell on the unpleasant part of it. After all, two years are
nothing. After the first hurt of the separation is over you will find
new interests, and life will once more become rosy. You are going to be
brave, aren't you?"

"Yes, father," answered Bee steadily.

"That is my good little daughter. Today I will bring Adele and her
mother over, and they will cheer you up. It will benefit Henry also to
have the change."

"Very well," answered the girl trying to smile.

She had not seen her cousin since she left her outside old Rachel's
cabin, and when evening brought Adele once more to Walnut Grove a dull
wonder crept into her heart that her coming was not fraught with pain.

To her surprise there was a great difference in the manner of both her
father and her cousin toward each other. Adele no longer made pert
sallies at his expense after the manner of a petted child; she seemed
rather subdued toward him. Bee did not fully comprehend how dissimilar
was their attitude for some days, and then she came slowly to see that
while Doctor Raymond was unfailingly courteous toward his niece it was
to her he turned, to her wishes that he deferred. It came to her with a
sort of shock that it was she herself who was first with him.

"Why! he loves me best. Father loves me best!" she said to herself in
surprise. "How has it come?"

To her wonder Adele treated the fact as a matter of course, but as a
full realization of the truth came to Bee her unhappiness at his going
increased.

"I wish I were going to college," cried Adele one day, fluttering about
a number of parcels that had just arrived. "I never saw such a lot of
hats and gowns. You will be the best dressed girl there, Bee."

"Will I?" asked Bee indifferently. Pretty frocks were all very well in
their place, but they did not relieve the ache in her heart.

"You don't care a thing about them," declared her cousin. "You are such
a funny girl!