Mrs. Raymond laughed, and turned toward the door through which her daughter came, her face aglow with pride.
"Beatrice has been ready a long time," she chided, the gentleness of her tone softening the reproof. "You should not have kept her waiting, my daughter, when this is the day she is expecting a letter from her father."
"Don't scold her, auntie," pleaded Bee gazing at her cousin with admiring eyes. "Oh, Adele! how do you make yourself look so pretty?"
Adele smiled, well pleased. She was accustomed to being told of her beauty, but she never wearied of the homage it exacted.
"You look nice too, Bee," she said condescendingly with a glance of approval at Beatrice's white robed figure. "Aren't you going to wear any hat?"
"I am going to carry it until we reach the road." Bee caught up a broad brimmed leghorn from a chair, and held it carelessly by the strings. "I don't like to wear one any more than I have to. I'll beat you to the gate, Adele."
"A race?" Adele drew her brows together in a prim little frown. "Such great girls as we are. Why, we are almost young ladies! It would not be proper."
"Bother propriety!" ejaculated her cousin. "There is a whole year before we are sixteen. We don't need to give up running until then. Do we, auntie?"
"No;" answered her aunt indulgently. "Be girls just as long as you can. You will be young ladies soon enough. I wish Adele would take more exercise."
"Just through the orchard then," cried Adele catching up her skirts daintily. "Here goes! Oh, Bee!"