My dear, I am very sorry for what I said. Can you forgive me?"
"Don"t speak of it, Mrs. Medulla," cried Bee warmly. "I was to blame after all, because I ought to have held his hands, or kept him in some way from those shears. And oh! where are they? I brought them home with me."
"Then we are friends again, dear," said the lady kissing her. "Never mind the shears. I don"t mind if I never see them again. I--"
"Mamma, Doctor Raymond is waiting to hear the particulars," broke in Percival, anxious to be heard. "You see, sir," turning to the scientist who was listening amusedly, "ever since I came here the boys have been making life miserable for me about the way I dressed and wore my hair.
Yesterday that big Jack Brown was having sport with me, teasing for a curl, and, and all that sort of thing. When I tried to fight him I could not do anything because he grabbed my hands. Beatrice came to my rescue, and maybe she didn"t put him to flight. You should have seen her." He chuckled at the remembrance, then continued: "I told her that the baby business ended then and there. That I wasn"t going to be made fun of any longer. I asked her to cut off my hair, but she wouldn"t; so I did it. I didn"t think about the money part of it, or I would not have done it. I can play just as well with trousers and short hair as I can with curls and knickerbockers, and I told mamma so after she came back from here.
Wasn"t Beatrice a trump, though, not to tell on me, and to take the blame? Why didn"t you tell, Beefly? I thought girls always did."
"Of course I wasn"t going to tell if you wouldn"t own up," returned Bee.
"That would be tattling."
"Any other girl would have done it," cried Percival. "I hate awfully to go away and leave you."
"O Percival! are you going away?"
"Yes; I came to tell how the affair happened, and to say good-bye. I am going back to New York to study. I am going to show people that a boy can play as well as a man even though he isn"t an Infant Prodigy. I"ll have to work hard, and throw no more fits if things go wrong; but, Gee!
I"d rather do it than to wear curls."
"You are right, my lad." Doctor Raymond shook his hand. "You will come out all right. I am sure. Your playing can not fail to win you a place in spite of your clothes. I wish you every success. I will leave you to say good-bye to the girls while your mother and I have a few words. You would like to see Adele too, I presume?"
"I suppose so," answered Master Percival dubiously. "Mamma said that I must be very nice to make up for my misbehavior, so I suppose that I must see Adele too. I don"t care so much for her as I do for Beatrice.
She is too pretty to be jolly. Pretty folks don"t make very good chums.
They think too much of themselves. I can"t bear any one who is spoiled, but--Yes; send her down."
Doctor Raymond smiled broadly as he and the lady left the room.
"I am so sorry that you are going, Percival," said Bee with a catch in her voice. "I shall miss you so much. Oh, I wish you were not going."
"I am coming back some day, Beefly," he declared earnestly. "Mind you don"t go away from here so that I can"t find you. You must stay right here."
"Yes;" answered Bee. "I shall always be right here whenever you come. I hope it won"t be long."
"And so you are going to leave us?" said Adele sweetly as she entered the room. "I shall miss you very much, Percival. I am glad to have had the pleasure of knowing you, and of hearing you play. Perhaps we shall meet again."
"Thank you," answered the boy on his best behavior. "I am glad to have known you, too. I have enjoyed our picnics very much, Adele."
"Picnics?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bee. "When did you ever have a picnic with Adele?"
"Hasn"t she told you?" asked the boy in surprise. "Every morning that you studied with your father lately, she would bring a basket of goodies and we went to the grove. It was fun, but it would have been jollier if you had been there."
"Adele," cried Bee sharply, a remembrance of Aunt f.a.n.n.y"s words coming to her, "were those the things you were to take to old Rachel?"
"Yes, they were," answered Adele defiantly. "I got tired of carrying them down to that cabin. I don"t believe that old woman is sick, anyway."
"Whether she was or not you should have taken those things to her,"
spoke Doctor Raymond, who had entered the room unperceived by the young people. "If you were tired of taking them you should have said so, and some one would have relieved you of the burden. As it is, she deems us guilty of neglect when we promised her aid, and, worse still, she may have suffered for the need of those very things. Is there no confidence to be placed in girls? Is neither of you to be trusted?"
Adele"s face at first scarlet with mortification turned white under the reproof. She gazed at him pleadingly, and then bursting into tears ran to him and threw her arms about him.
"Do forgive me, Uncle William," she sobbed. "If you will, I"ll never neglect her again. Please, please try me just once more! Only once more, Uncle William. Will you?"
Doctor Raymond"s stern expression relaxed as the pretty penitent clung to him.
"There!" he said with great gentleness. "Perhaps I demand too much of you. I should remember that you are young and thoughtless, and perhaps, too, you did not realize the gravity of what you were doing. There, child! we will say no more about it, but you must be more careful."
"And you do forgive me, uncle? You will let me try again?"
"Yes, child; of course I forgive you."
Bee listened to the foregoing conversation with amazement and profound astonishment. She, too, had trespa.s.sed, but he had promised forgiveness only if her future conduct merited it. What was the reason that he found it so much harder to forgive her than Adele? Did he exact more from her because she was his daughter? He had told her that he had thought her different from other girls. If that were the case then did he expect her to come up to a higher standard? Puzzled, perplexed, she gazed at her father with such steady directness that he turned his head and met her glance squarely.
"Beatrice," he said, "I fear you do not understand many things."
But Bee smiled suddenly. She thought she had solved the enigma. And with the thought came the resolve that she would meet his expectations; that she would, if endeavor could bring it about, reach the high standard he had set for his daughter. So she was able to reply:
"I think that I do, father. It"s all right."
Then with Percival she went out of the room.
Chapter XXII
"I Shouldn"t Want You To Be Anything But Pretty"
"Let each art a.s.sail a fault or help a merit grow; Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads, Let love through good deeds show."
--_Edwin Arnold._
"Now how shall I get this to him?" pondered Bee the next morning as she stood before the study door with a bowl of pansies in her hand. Since old Rachel had told her that it had been a custom of her mother"s she had not failed to put a flower of some sort on her father"s table each morning. "Adele!"
"Yes?" answered Adele, coming to the hall. "What is it, Bee? Those pansies?"
"Yes; do you mind putting them on father"s table for me? I don"t know how to get them there this morning."
"Certainly I"ll do it, Bee. But why don"t you take them in yourself? He has not gone in yet, and I won"t tell."
"Father told me not to," returned Bee. "I don"t want to go in until I am worthy."
Adele laughed as she took the pansies.
"You know, Bee, if you were to go right in, and tease him a bit, he wouldn"t think anything more about your staying out," she said. "You ought to take some lessons from me. I know just how to manage him."
"We are different, Adele," answered Bee. "What would be all right for you would not do at all for me. If you will just help me a little about this you don"t know how much I will appreciate it. I have been wondering how it could be managed."
"What will you do when I am gone?" asked Adele.