aid not a word about its being her fault. She had no fear of
Bee's telling either. Her cousin had a boy's sense of honor about such
things, and unless she herself owned up, the matter would rest between
them. So she made no further comment on the subject, and the older
people, deeming the affair of no great importance since it was known
that a mistake had been made, resumed conversation.

Bee sat silent, her heart swelling almost to bursting. The words of her
father's letter rang in her brain: "It is partly your letters that have
wrought this change ... and partly your picture, which completed what
the letters had begun. I cannot resist its winsomeness."

* * * * *

It was Adele's picture which had brought him home. He would not have
come had she sent her own. He had thought the beautiful girl was his
daughter, and he was disappointed because she was not. He wanted Adele.
Adele!

The dinner, on the whole not a successful meal, was over at last. The
older people were deep in conversation; the traveller narrating his
experiences, the others questioning and exclaiming. Bee had pictured
just such a scene, but always in fancy she sat close to her father's
side with her hand in his, or else his arm was thrown caressingly around
her. The reality was so different that it was more than she could bear.
Seeing that she was unobserved, she rose and stole quietly out of the
house.

The light breeze, breathing of the sweetness of honeysuckles and roses,
touched the tops of the walnut trees and dipped down to stir the cool
grass beneath them. Into the darkness of the grove went the unhappy
girl. When she had reached a place where she was out of sight and sound
of the house she threw herself down, and gave way to a passion of tears.

"It's not fair," she sobbed in angry resentment. "She has her father,
and her mother too; and now she has to take mine. Oh, I can't bear it! I
can't bear it!"

"Bee!" Adele had seen her cousin leave the house, and had followed her.

"Go away," cried Bee, sitting up and speaking vehemently. "Go away,
Adele Raymond! I hate you!"

"I don't see why you should," whimpered Adele. "I shouldn't think you
would care so much for such a little thing. I shouldn't mind it a bit,
if I were in your place."

"Yes, you would," blazed Bee. "If you had not seen your father since you
were a little girl, and when he came home he thought some one else was
you, you wouldn't like it a bi