Inside the pier the cabs threaded their way through freight piled mountains high to canvas covered gangways leading to the first saloon. The promenade deck was crowded with those who were to sail, and those who had come to see them off. Some were walking up and down the deck excitedly, others were standing about in groups. It was a busy, exciting scene. One so new to the girls that they found the pain of parting swallowed up in the excitement of the event. The older people, too, were strangely silent, and seemed influenced by the bustle about them.
"You will come back so learned there will be no living with you," declared Adele presently, turning her back upon the confusion of the wharf, and with a half envious note in her voice. "And a beauty, too, I expect. You are almost that now, Bee, with your eyes shining so, and that uplifted look on your face."
"Do you know, Adele," she said at length, "that I don't believe that I shall ever want to be a beauty again. It is all true, just as everybody told me; it doesn't matter in the least about looks, after all. When I was thinking about that and nothing else, everything went wrong. But when I thought about other people and giving them pleasure they tried to do the same by me. Now that Butterfly Dinner: I didn't think of anything in the world but giving those scientists a nice dinner, and a little fun. Just see what it did for me! They have made me father's secretary. Oh, I am going to try to be so good and so sweet that I will deserve all this honor that has come to me!"
"And, and old Rachel's sickness when you helped her," supplemented Adele, a slight flush stealing over her face at the recollection. "If you hadn't gone in there to carry that basket your father would not have wished you to go with him. Maybe, maybe, I will try to be less selfish too, Bee. I haven't always been as nice to you as I ought to have been."
"Don't say a word about it," exclaimed Bee bending forward to kiss her. "Everything has all turned out for the best. You have been just lovely about my going, and helping, and all. If it were not for being with father I should be very unhappy over leaving you; but so long as I am with him I can't help but feel happy."