A Great Surprise
"The life we choose
Breathes high, and sees a full-arched firmament.
Our deeds shall speak like rock-hewn messages,
Teaching great purpose to the distant time."
—George Eliot.
To the young all things are tragic. To Beatrice it seemed that the end of everything had come. Now she realized that behind her objection to Adele's presence in her home there had lurked the fear that her father's stay would be short.
She shed no more tears, but her dry-eyed grief was more distressing for that very reason. If Doctor Raymond hoped to talk matters over again he reckoned without his host, for Beatrice could not speak of the separation. The scientist was very busy and had little leisure to devote to his daughter, but he noted with concern her lack of interest in everything.
"Beatrice," he said to her one day, "you need some one with you. I am obliged to be away a great deal just now, and it is lonely for you. Your aunt has kindly consented to superintend the preparation of your wardrobe, and it might be wise for you to spend the remaining time there. Either that or else they must come here."
"Let them come here, father. I—I don't want to leave home before I must."
There were no tears in her voice, but something in it caused her father to say, not quite steadily:
"My daughter, be brave. Don't make it hard for me."