"Light and silv'ry cloudlets hover
In the air as yet scarce warm;
Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over,
Peeps the sun through fragrant balm."
May Song. Goethe.
"I am so glad that I sent it," exclaimed Beatrice again and again after posting the letter and the photograph. "Father has always wanted my picture, but I waited hoping that sometime I'd get a good one. Still, it will give him an idea of how I look even though it is a poor likeness. I do wonder if he will like it!"
And with a roguish smile Adele would answer: "I think so, Bee."
The days passed. With more than her usual impatience Bee waited for an answer to her letter. If the connections were prompt, if he were not away from civilization on an extended butterfly hunt, if he wrote just as soon as he received it, she ought to hear by the last of May, she told herself; so, having arrived at this conclusion, she tried to rest in patience until that time should come.
At length the timid beauties of April were merged into the exuberance of the leaf and flower of May, and Nature was resplendent in the full glory of the springtide. The last day of the month fell upon a Saturday, and early in the morning of that day Bee dressed herself to go into town for the mail. Seating herself upon the steps of the piazza to wait for Adele who was to accompany her she feasted her eyes upon the beauty of the orchard whose trees seemed like great pink and white bouquets set in the ground. Suddenly a puff of wind stirred the branches, and sent the petals of the apple blossoms flying in every direction.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the girl springing up from the steps in pretended dismay as a shower of the fragrant blooms deluged her. "Snow in May! I told Adele that it would be Christmas before she was ready. Come out, and see the storm, Aunt Annie."
A lady standing just inside a long French window which opened upon the porch came through it to her niece's side.
"What an idea!" she said in a clear musical voice.