"You may wear a gray dress if you wish," remarked Bee. "I shall dress as I always do. Father, don't you think that we ought to attend to that before we go shopping?"
"Yes. Deeds of kindness should take precedence over all else. Now, girls, I am going into the study to read for a time. I know that you two must have a great deal to say to each other. Beatrice has had to be content with just me a long time.
"Good-night, Uncle William!" Adele ran to him and put up her lips for a kiss. "You are just horrid to run off to those old bugs and things. If you run away too often, I'll throw them into the river."
Bee looked up horrified at her cousin's pertness.
"Good-night, you butterfly," responded Doctor Raymond, kissing his niece, and seeming not at all dismayed by her threat. "Don't let me catch you tampering with my bugs, as you call them. Good-night, daughter!"
"Good-night, father," replied the girl without glancing at him. He had laughed just as if he had enjoyed Adele's nonsense. He had not kissed her since the first night of his homecoming, and her heart throbbed at the thought of how easily Adele could get what she would have given anything for.
Her father hesitated a moment, then, catching sight of her expression, he crossed the room to her side, and putting his hand under her chin, raised her face gently and looked into her eyes.
"Aren't you going to kiss me too?" he asked.
Bee's eyes filled, and she was unable to speak, as was always the case when she was deeply moved. He waited, wondering at her silence, when all at once he spoke with a quick intake of his breath:
"There is a look of your mother about you tonight, Beatrice. I never noticed it before. Child, child,--"
He withdrew his hand from her chin, turned, and quitted the room abruptly.
"What made him do that?" cried Adele. "Doesn't he like you yet, Bee?"
But Bee's eyes were shining through her tears.
"He said that I looked like my mother," she breathed. "Oh, Adele! Did you hear him?"
"Well, what of it? I don't see anything so wonderful in that. Everyone says that I am the perfect image of mamma. It would be natural for you to look like your mother."
"But he loved her dearly, dearly," said Bee. "If he thinks that I am like her he will love me too. He just _must_ like me," she broke forth. "Why, Adele, I think I should die if he didn't."