"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?" ejaculated 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 Fanny'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."