"And, and old Rachel's sickness when you helped her," supplemented Adele, a slight flush stealing over her face at the recollection. "If you hadn't gone in there to carry that basket your father would not have wished you to go with him. Maybe, maybe, I will try to be less selfish too, Bee. I haven't always been as nice to you as I ought to have been."
"Don't say a word about it," exclaimed Bee bending forward to kiss her. "Everything has all turned out for the best. You have been just lovely about my going, and helping, and all. If it were not for being with father I should be very unhappy over leaving you; but so long as I am with him I can't help but feel happy."
"What are our Bee and Butterfly conversing so earnestly about?" asked Mrs. Raymond suddenly. "Adele, do you know that you must begin to say good-bye to your cousin? By the time you girls have finished the whistle will have blown. You know how long it takes you."
Adele looked up with eyes that swam with tears.
"And it will be two years," she murmured, giving Bee a big hug. "I do hope that you will have a good time, Bee. If you see a pretty fan you might send it to me. I just love those Egyptian things, and it will be nice to show the girls. To think of your going so far! Be sure to write me long letters. I don't believe that there will be another girl in school who will have a correspondent in foreign parts. It is nice in some ways, but I shall miss you."
"I'll send you just as many pretty things as I can," promised Bee. "I'll never see anything that is real pretty that I won't think of you. You must write long letters too, Adele, and tell me all about the girls, and the school, and everything that happens. Oh, there is the warning!"
Adele clung to her for a moment, then as her father and mother hastily exchanged good-byes with Bee she flung her arms about her uncle.
"You must be awfully good to Bee," she sobbed. "And bring her home safe. Oh, I do wish you were not going!"
Doctor Raymond kissed her gently without replying, and the three left the boat.
The big vessel stirred sluggishly, and then with a hip! hip! hurrah! from the sailors swung out from the pier, backed into midstream and headed for the bay and the ocean.