"Yes; although there is not much more to do. We are nearly at the end of the cataloguing. The larvæ have all entered the pupa state, and—when the last of them come out, which will be in a few days, we have only to classify and catalogue them which will end the work. I am boxing the collection ready for shipping to the University. Let us go see the new butterflies, Beatrice, before we begin work. I have not been in the laboratory this morning."
Bee turned at once toward the laboratory, but as she reached the door she paused hesitatingly, a remembrance of the last time when she had lost the rare specimen clouding her pleasure.
"You have learned your lesson, Beatrice," spoke her father gently. "I feel sure that never again will you be guilty of carelessness. Let us think no more about it." He opened the door as he spoke, and they went in.
The caterpillars had disappeared. A few chrysalids depended from some twigs, and a number of butterflies, like flowers reft from their stems, were flickering and pursuing each other in the sunshine which streamed through the windows. They settled, and Bee stole softly toward them and gently shook the thistles upon which they rested. The delicate creatures rose once more. Round and round they flew like great yellow and bronze and purple flowers, then softly, quietly settled again.
"How beautiful they are!" exclaimed Bee. "Is there another insect so pretty, I wonder?"
"Not to me," he replied. "Perhaps it is because of our interest in them that they appear so to us."
So it came about that Beatrice became her father's helper once more. Her studies were resumed, and the old delightful intimacy that had prevailed before the coming of Adele was renewed with a completer understanding of each other on the part of both father and daughter. The cataloguing progressed with rapidity. There came a day when Doctor Raymond laid down his manuscript with something approaching a sigh.
"That ends your work, Beatrice," he said. "The cataloguing is ended. Now go for a walk while I box up the last case of specimens. No; you can not help me in that. You have already been of great assistance. I do not know how I should have gotten along without you."
Well pleased by his words Beatrice left the house, and sauntered down the road, past the place formerly occupied by the Medullas, and on toward her favorite grove, sometimes pausing to pluck an early aster, or spray of golden rod blooming along the dusty roadside. A stillness that no bird note disturbed, for the birds that had not already departed were clustered about those places where dripping springs were to be found, prevailed throughout the cool recesses of the grove. The girl flung herself down under an oak tree, idly watching the impatient tapping of a squirrel in the branches above at the still resisting acorns. The monotony of the soulless sunshine became irksome. The spirit of the furred and feathered folk of the woods was stealing into her. Like them she was heartily tired of the summer, and half stifled in the wornout atmosphere of the sleepy silent August day.
"I am glad that tomorrow is the first day of September," she exclaimed, sitting up and speaking aloud. "It is so hot. I want a change!"