Adele winced. "He'll find you awfully clever, Bee."
"You dear!" exclaimed Bee leaning forward to kiss her. "You are just as sweet as you are pretty."
"Sue Ford said the other day that I was sweet because I did not have sense enough to be anything else," observed Adele.
"The mean thing!" cried Bee. "Sue says lots of things, although I am glad that she said what she did about father's not knowing me. If she had not said that I would have thought that my picture was not good enough to send, and father wouldn't be coming home. Still, I don't like her saying that you have no sense."
"Oh, I don't mind," said Adele, biting a blade of grass meditatively. After all, it did not matter so much about the picture. When her Uncle William came she would tell them that she did it for fun, and they would have a good laugh. Bee wouldn't mind at all when her father was really with her. So, quite restored to her usual complacency, she continued; "I know that I am not clever like you, or Sue, or some of the other girls; and when I see how worried you get over your examinations I am glad that I'm not. Bee, does Uncle William know that you have studied up butterflies?"
"No; I was going to tell him when I answered this letter. I expect that he will laugh at my specimens. Dear father!"
She lingered over the word as though she liked to say it. All at once she rose with a little cry. "We must go home, Adele. Aunt Annie ought to know about father at once, so that she can make the necessary arrangements about going to Walnut Grove. To think of being in my own home with my own father so soon!"
"Bee," said Adele slipping her arm through her cousin's as they walked homeward, "will you let me wear your new hat Sunday?"
"Yes;" assented Bee abstractedly. She was accustomed to having Adele wear her new things, though Adele did not wish to lend her own.
"And your bracelet?" went on Adele, seeing that Bee was too absorbed to care what she promised.