"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,Is the next way to draw new mischief on."—Othello. Shakespeare.
"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,Is the next way to draw new mischief on."
—Othello. Shakespeare.
"Dear, dear! will evening never come!" exclaimed Beatrice, pushing back her hair impatiently and looking at the clock in the hall for the third time in five minutes.
"Don't you know that the days are longer in June, Bee?" asked Adele in mock surprise.
"Isn't there anything that you can do, Beatrice?" Mrs. Raymond glanced up from her embroidery. "Occupation of some sort is the best remedy for restlessness."
"Everything is done, auntie. I've even set the table for dinner, and it's only five o'clock. Three long hours before he comes! What shall I do?"
"It will take nearly all that time to dress," remarked Adele rising.
"How do you manage it, Adele? I need only fifteen minutes."
"Which explains your usual fly-away look," observed her aunt quietly. "It would do no harm to expend more pains upon your toilet, Beatrice. A girl cannot be too careful of her personal appearance. This evening of all others you should desire to look your best."
"I do, auntie; so I will begin to get ready right now," replied Bee, following her cousin out of the room.
It was the Fifteenth of June, and everything was in readiness for Doctor Raymond's homecoming. He had always objected to a tenant in his home, so the dwelling had been left in charge of caretakers. Each year, however, Walnut Grove, as the old vine-clad house was called, had enjoyed a thorough house-cleaning under Mrs. Raymond's supervision; but never before had it undergone such a furious renovation. Paint and floors were scoured; walls swept; beds shaken and sunned, and furniture polished. The grounds, too, had received attention as the neat appearance of lawn and garden could testify. The last day of waiting left nothing to do to beguile the dragging hours.
Mrs. Raymond settled herself for a quiet time after the departure of the girls, but she was not long left alone. Her calm was shortly broken by the reappearance of her niece.
"I've been just as long as ever I could be," cried Bee, skimming lightly across the room to the lady's side. "I've brushed my hair until the roots are visible, and if there is a button unfastened anywhere about me it would take a search warrant to find it. Will I do, auntie?"
Her aunt suppressed a smile, and looked at her critically. The girl was looking unusually well. She wore a gown of shimmering white which clung to her lithesome figure in soft folds. A single red rose nestled caressingly in her hair and supplied the touch of color needful. Excitement lent a flush to her cheek and an added lustre to her eye so that she appeared animated and even brilliant.
"You never looked so well in your life, Bee," approved Mrs. Raymond. "Why, you are almost beautiful."
"As if I could ever be that," laughed Bee, giving her a bearish hug and a resounding kiss. "Although, if anything in the world could transform me into a beauty it would be father's coming. There, Aunt Annie! I am going to leave you in peace. I am going into the garden and walk to the Arbor Vitae hedge. It will take five minutes to walk there, and five to come back. If I do that six times one hour will be gone."
"Oh, youth! Impatient, restless youth!" ejaculated the lady as the girl danced out of the room.
The sun sank to rest. The gorgeous hued clouds of sunset lost their brilliancy under the approach of gray Twilight, and were folded upon the breast of Evening. Low in the west hung the silvery crescent of the young moon; and near, vieing with it in brightness, shone the soft radiance of the evening star—first wanderer in the train of night. The twilight shadows lengthened. The odorous breeze, scented with honeyed clover and the perfume of roses, grew languid in its sweetness, and presently died away. Great dusky moths drifted silently about the half-closed flowers, and from the hedge sounded the plaintive notes of a whip-poor-will.
"You will not have much longer to wait, Bee," comforted Mrs. Raymond, coming out on the verandah where the girl had taken her stand. "I heard the train quite a while ago, so they will soon be here. They are later than Henry thought they would be. You are not nervous, are you?"
"No; that is, I don't know," answered Bee, her head bent in a listening attitude. "Oh, auntie! What makes the minutes seem so long when one is waiting for something good to happen? They go fast enough at other times."
"It is one of those things that can't be explained, child," answered Mrs. Raymond gravely. "You remember the old proverb: 'A watched pot never boils'? But it won't be much longer. Try to possess your soul in patience for just a short time. He will soon be here now. It grows dark, doesn't it? The dinner will be quite late. Had we not better go inside?"
"You may, auntie, but I want to stay right here so as to get the first glimpse of him."
"I think I will, Bee. The air seems damp, and I am beginning to feel some of your nervousness. Adele is singing in the parlor. I think I'll join her."
"Do," said Bee briefly.
The darkness grew denser, but Bee still lingered on the porch, her form half hidden by the vines. Presently the sound of wheels was heard down the drive, and she started forward eagerly, then paused overcome by a sudden shyness. Mrs. Raymond hastened to the door, and stepped to the girl's side.
"Come," she called as Beatrice shrank behind her.
A carriage came rapidly out of the darkness, and drew up before the entrance. Before it had fairly stopped the door opened, and a man sprang from it. Quickly he ran up the steps just as Adele appeared in the doorway, the broad white light of the hall lamp shining about her yellow hair like a halo, making her face with its beautiful eyes look like a cameo in a golden setting.
"Welcome home, William," began Mrs. Raymond, but her brother-in-law brushed by her with eyes only for the graceful figure beyond.
"My daughter! My dear little daughter!" he cried, clasping the astonished girl in his arms.
"How beautiful you are! You are just as I pictured you."
"Oh!" burst from Bee in such heartbroken accents that Mrs. Raymond was galvanized into action.
"William," she cried, laughing nervously, "you have made a mistake. That is my daughter, Adele. Beatrice, come and welcome your father."
Beatrice came forward slowly. All the joy and sparkle had gone out of her face, and in its misery it looked dull and heavy.
"Why, why," stammered Doctor Raymond, glancing from one girl to the other, his disappointment written plainly upon his countenance. "I thought, I certainly thought—"
"You thought that I was Bee, didn't you?" smiled Adele, gracefully disengaging herself from his embrace. "It was a funny mistake, as we are not a bit alike. Bee is so clever."
"Yes; I dare say." The entomologist was clearly bewildered by the occurrence, and he greeted his own daughter awkwardly in consequence. Bee received his caress passively, feeling with unerring intuition his lack of warmth.
Mechanically she followed the others into the parlor, her anguish each moment becoming more intolerable. She could not but remark how her father's eyes were constantly straying toward Adele who was fairly radiant. Bee had adored her cousin, and had been proud of her beauty; but now, something closely resembling hatred crept into her heart.
Hoping that the cheer and conversation of the table would put matters upon a more genial footing, Mrs. Raymond ushered them in to dinner. The lady, as well as her husband, had been distressed by the incident, and both viewed with anxiety Beatrice's constraint and coldness. The girl was usually the gayest of the gay at table, and so light-hearted that her aunt frequently reproved her for her levity, but now, fearful of losing control of herself, she grew so frigid that there was no thawing her out. The talk was chiefly among the grown people.
"What are your plans, William?" asked Henry Raymond.
"They are uncertain," replied Doctor Raymond. "I shall be here for the summer at least. I have a great number of specimens to mount and to catalogue, beside some work upon my new book. In fact, I have so much on hand that I fear it will be very lonesome for Beatrice. Do you not think, my child,—" with a conciliatory smile in Bee's direction, and blundering into a second error as even the most learned of men, be they lepidopterists or what not, sometimes will,—"do you not think that you would better have your cousin with you for the summer?"
"No;" blurted out Bee, unable to trust herself to utter more than the single word.
"Why, bless my soul!" ejaculated the scientist, turning an amazed glance upon her. Mrs. Raymond interposed quickly:
"Beatrice is right, William. It has been long since she has seen you, and you will naturally wish to spend as much time with her as possible. I have already arranged for Adele to go to mother's for the summer. She may come to you in the fall; if Beatrice wishes."
"Perhaps that will be better," acquiesced the traveller quietly. "And now, as we are all here together, it may be the time and place for explanations. I don't know whether one is due me, or to Beatrice; but I do not understand how I received this in place of her picture. Can you explain the mistake, my daughter?"
He drew Adele's photograph from the inside pocket of his coat as he spoke, and handed it to Bee. She gave an exclamation of astonishment as she saw the beautiful, laughing countenance on the cardboard instead of her own. Then she raised her eyes, and gave Adele a long, steady look. Adele had changed the photographs, and Bee knew that it had been done on purpose. She saw that her cousin was a little frightened, and she wondered what explanation she would make.
Adele was frightened. It had not occurred to her that the matter would take on a serious aspect, and she feared to say that she had made the exchange in fun. So she reached over and took the photograph from Bee with a hand that trembled slightly.
"Why! It's my picture," she cried with a little hysterical giggle. "What a mistake! I remember now they both came home together, and lay on the desk in the library. They must have gotten mixed some way. It would have been easy to change them."
"Why, so it would," agreed her mother with a relieved expression. "I remember they were on the desk together. Bee must have picked up yours, Adele, by mistake."
And Adele said not a word about its being her fault. She had no fear of Bee's telling either. Her cousin had a boy's sense of honor about such things, and unless she herself owned up, the matter would rest between them. So she made no further comment on the subject, and the older people, deeming the affair of no great importance since it was known that a mistake had been made, resumed conversation.
Bee sat silent, her heart swelling almost to bursting. The words of her father's letter rang in her brain: "It is partly your letters that have wrought this change ... and partly your picture, which completed what the letters had begun. I cannot resist its winsomeness."
It was Adele's picture which had brought him home. He would not have come had she sent her own. He had thought the beautiful girl was his daughter, and he was disappointed because she was not. He wanted Adele. Adele!
The dinner, on the whole not a successful meal, was over at last. The older people were deep in conversation; the traveller narrating his experiences, the others questioning and exclaiming. Bee had pictured just such a scene, but always in fancy she sat close to her father's side with her hand in his, or else his arm was thrown caressingly around her. The reality was so different that it was more than she could bear. Seeing that she was unobserved, she rose and stole quietly out of the house.
The light breeze, breathing of the sweetness of honeysuckles and roses, touched the tops of the walnut trees and dipped down to stir the cool grass beneath them. Into the darkness of the grove went the unhappy girl. When she had reached a place where she was out of sight and sound of the house she threw herself down, and gave way to a passion of tears.
"It's not fair," she sobbed in angry resentment. "She has her father, and her mother too; and now she has to take mine. Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"
"Bee!" Adele had seen her cousin leave the house, and had followed her.
"Go away," cried Bee, sitting up and speaking vehemently. "Go away, Adele Raymond! I hate you!"
"I don't see why you should," whimpered Adele. "I shouldn't think you would care so much for such a little thing. I shouldn't mind it a bit, if I were in your place."
"Yes, you would," blazed Bee. "If you had not seen your father since you were a little girl, and when he came home he thought some one else was you, you wouldn't like it a bit more than I do. Adele Raymond, you changed those pictures on purpose."
"It was only in fun, Bee. Truly, I did not mean it any other way. I never dreamed that your father would come back just because of it."
"But you did know that if he thought the picture was mine he would think I was pretty. How could he help it? It would give him a wrong idea of how I looked, and when he came he would be disappointed. You knew that. And then you ran out just as soon as you heard the carriage."
"I didn't do that on purpose anyway, Bee. I was singing, you know, when I heard the wheels, and I ran out without thinking."
"But I heard Aunt Annie tell you to wait in the parlor until I had greeted father," went on Bee accusingly. "You ran right out to the door where the light would fall on you, so that he could not help but see you first. It was done on purpose. I know it was. I'll never trust you again in anything."
"I didn't think," said Adele again. "I didn't know that he was going to take me for his daughter, even though I did send him my picture. Anyway you ought to be glad that I sent it. He would not have come if I hadn't."
"That's just it," uttered Bee with a pitiful sob. "If it were just a mistake of the moment I could get over it, even though that would be bad enough. But it's knowing that he poured over your picture, thinking that it was his daughter. It's knowing that he was glad that you were beautiful when I am not. It's knowing that it was for you that he came home, and not for me at all. Oh! he never will care for an ugly old thing like me now."
"Yes, he will. Everybody likes you best when they know us both for a time. Then your mind—"
"Bother the mind!" ejaculated the other girl fiercely. "Mind doesn't count. It's only being pretty that counts, and you know it, Adele Raymond. Doesn't everyone indulge you just because you are pretty? And now my father—and he's the only father I've got, too—now he's just like everybody else. Oh, I hate you!"
"I don't want you to hate me, Bee," cried Adele, her own tears beginning to flow. "You never cared before that I was pretty."
"I wouldn't care now if father didn't—didn't—" Bee broke down completely, unable to finish.
"Won't you be friends, Bee?" pleaded Adele.
"No; I won't," answered Bee with decision.
"And won't you let me stay with you this Summer? I don't like grandma's. It's poky there." Adele never once mentioned Bee's telling who had changed the pictures. She knew without asking that Bee would not.
"I don't want you here," replied Bee angrily. "You want to stay because father admires you, but you shan't do it. I want him to myself, and I've a right to have him. He's my father!"
"Please, Bee," coaxed Adele. Bee always gave in to her pleadings, and she could not believe that she would not do so now.
"I am going to my room," announced Beatrice, rising. "And I don't want to be followed there."
She walked abruptly away, leaving Adele weeping softly.
"Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt,Nothing's so hard but search will find it out."—Herrick.
"Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt,Nothing's so hard but search will find it out."
—Herrick.
The next day Mr. and Mrs. Henry Raymond with Adele went home. For the first time in their lives the girls took leave of each other with coldness. The older people affected not to notice the lack of warmth in their adieus, believing that time and absence would heal the breach between them. Before their departure Mrs. Raymond had called her niece to her for a little talk.
"Bee, dear," she said, "you don't know how sorry I am for what has occurred. It was a most unfortunate mistake, but you must put all thought of it out of your mind. Be your own bright self again."
"I want to be pretty, Aunt Annie," burst from Bee, whose eyes were swollen and red from much weeping.
"That is nonsense, Beatrice," spoke her aunt sharply. "You cannot change your looks. 'What can't be cured must be endured.' Your personal appearance heretofore has caused you no concern, and there is no reason that it should begin to trouble you now. Beauty is not everything. Sometimes the plainest countenance becomes charming when stirred by the emotions of a noble heart."
"Yes; I know," said Beatrice dully. "I know all that. I've heard it ever since I can remember. My father would say the same thing, I dare say, yet his eyes follow Adele constantly, and he scarcely looks at me. People are always preaching how little beauty matters, and then they turn round and show that it makes all the difference in the world. Take Adele and me, Aunt Annie. Haven't I always had to stand back for her? You know that I have. I have given up my prettiest things to her, and been second in everything. But she shall not be first with my father. She shall not," she repeated passionately.
"You do not realize what you are saying, Beatrice," said Mrs. Raymond coldly, surprised and shocked by the girl's bitterness. It was such an ordinary occurrence for Adele to be admired that she did not fully grasp what it meant to her niece in the present instance. Then, too, Beatrice had always seemed to join in the admiration of her cousin so warmly that the lady was astonished at her feeling.
"I do not see why you should exhibit so much emotion over a simple occurrence," she continued after a moment. "It was a thing that might happen to anyone, and you are exaggerating the importance of it. Think no more about it, but make yourself so lovable that no one will care whether you are pretty or not. It lies in your power to win your father's affection, but it can not be done by continuing in your present frame of mind." And Bee found herself dismissed.
Soon afterward good-byes were said, and the girl's anguish increased as she saw how reluctant her father seemed to bid Adele farewell. To the young all things are tragic, and this which had befallen seemed nothing short of a calamity to Bee. At length, however, they were gone, and then Doctor Raymond turned to his daughter with a smile:
"Well, Beatrice, we are to have the house to ourselves, it appears. I presume that you have some studies, or some way by which you can amuse yourself for a few days. I shall be very busy for a time preparing reports, and arranging my specimens for the university; after which I shall be at liberty to make my little girl's acquaintance."
William Raymond did not mean to be cruel; but he was a scientist much absorbed in his work. He did have a great deal before him. Perhaps too he was not quite at ease with himself for the warmth which he had discovered toward his niece; perhaps, too, there lurked in his heart a faint feeling of disappointment that his daughter was not the lovely girl who had left in place of this silent, sullen appearing maiden who returned a passive:
"Very well, father."
Poor Bee! She had studied butterflies, her father's specialty, on purpose to surprise him. She had thought that he would let her be with him when he unpacked the rare specimens which he had obtained abroad, and she had pictured the delightful chats they would enjoy together.
The reality was so different from the anticipation that her heart swelled with the injustice of the thing, and she wept until the fountain of her tears was dry. The housekeeping which was to have been her pleasure served now to distract her mind. She threw herself into it with so much fervor as to extort a remonstrance from Aunt Fannie, the old colored woman who was the head factotum of the kitchen.
"You all jest a gwine to kill yerse'f," she said reprovingly. "'Tain't no mannah ob use to scrub an' scour twel a fly can't stan' up nowhar. Take hit easy, Miss Bee."
"It's all that I can do for father," responded Bee, and the old woman was silenced.
So the days went by. Every morning she saw her father at breakfast, and received his formal greeting as gracefully as she could. The meal over, Doctor Raymond disappeared in his study to be seen no more until evening. He was never a demonstrative man, and his reserve seemed like indifference to his daughter. Beatrice pondered upon his unconcern until she became possessed with the one idea that somehow, some way, she must do something to attract his attention.
"It's all because I'm not pretty," thought the unhappy child one morning when this state of things had gone on for a week. "I must do something to make him like me; but what?"
Listlessly she took up her butterfly book and turned the pages idly. All at once her eye was caught by these words:
"One of the most singular and interesting facts in the animal kingdom is what has been styled mimicry. Certain colors and forms are possessed by animals which adapt them to their surroundings in such wise that they are in a greater or less degree secured from observation and attack....
"A good illustration of this fact is found in the Disipsus Butterfly, which belongs to a group which is not especially protected, but is often the prey of insect-eating creatures. This butterfly has assumed almost the exact color and markings of the milkweed butterfly, which is distasteful to birds, and hence enjoys peculiar freedom from the attacks of enemies. Because this adaption of one form to another evidently serves the purpose of defense this phenomenon has been called 'protective mimicry.'"
"'Protective mimicry,'" mused the girl thoughtfully, leaning back in her chair and clasping her hands above her head. "That means if an animal wishes to defend himself from another he just puts on the form of one that his enemy doesn't like. 'Actor bugs,' Professor Lawrence calls them. If that can be done why couldn't any creature put on any form he liked? Wouldn't it be funny if a girl could change her appearance every morning just like she does her dress? I could get up then looking just like Adele. Why!—"
Bee sat up suddenly, startled by the idea which came to her.
"Beatrice Raymond," she cried, "you can do it. Why it's done every day. Didn't Emma Drew come back from St. Louis with golden hair when she had gone away with it black? Wasn't Mrs. Simpson's hair red, and then all at once wasn't it black? And the girls are always doing things to their complexions. Why, I can be just like Adele if I wish. Oh, why didn't I think of it sooner? I've lost a whole week." And with that she jumped up from the chair, went to the mirror, and surveyed herself critically:
"I could not change my eyes," she mused, "but I don't believe that would matter. Adele's are sometimes so dark that they seem black. But oh dear! My complexion is horrid, and my hair is so dark! They would have to be changed. Now what is the way to do it?"
At this moment Bee was in need of tender guidance from an older woman. She was a warm-hearted, loving, undisciplined girl; prone to do things on the impulse of the moment which she would afterward deeply regret. She had brooded over the indifference of her father and his apparent preference for her cousin until the matter had assumed gigantic proportions. Had it not been for the unfortunate change of photographs, and her father's consequent mistake, the question of looks would never have bothered her. As it was, the idea that if she could make herself like Adele, her father could not help but love her, filled her mind to the exclusion of anything else, and she thought of nothing save how the thing could be accomplished. Presently she turned from the glass and went down stairs to the kitchen.
"Aunt Fanny," she said to the negro woman, "do you know of anything that would make my skin white?"
"Lawsie, chile! What am de mattah wid yer skin? Hit am good ernuff," answered Aunt Fanny.
"But do you?" persisted Bee. "Because if you do, and will tell me, I will give you my string of yellow beads. Do you know anything?"
"'Cose I does, honey," answered the darkey, her eyes glistening at the mention of the beads. "Habn't I larn'd all erbout yarbs?"
"Then please tell me," coaxed the girl.
"Yer want hit like Miss Adele's?" questioned the old woman shrewdly.
"Yes," answered Bee eagerly.
"All yer has ter do, Miss Bee, is to git jim'son—yer know jim'son weed, honey?"
"Yes, yes," cried Bee impatiently. "Go on."
"Yer gits jim'son, an' makes a poultice ob de leabs. War dat ober night on yer face, an' in de mawnin' yer'll be as fair as de lily ob de valley. Miss Adele can't hole a candle to yer."
"Are you sure, Aunt Fanny?" questioned Bee gleefully.
"'Cose I'se sure. What'd I be tellin' yer fer ef I ain't sure?"
"And could you make my hair yellow like Adele's?"
"No'm; I cain't do dat. Dere's a worman down in de town kin, but I cain't. No'm; I kin do mos' anything, I reckon, but dat."
"Do you mean Miss Harris, the hairdresser, Aunt Fanny?" asked Bee with sudden enlightenment.
"Yes'um; she'll make yer hair yaller, er red, er anything yer wants hit," returned Aunt Fanny pompously, proud to be able to give so much information to her young mistress.
"Thank you, thank you," cried Bee, springing up joyfully. "I'll get the beads now, and if everything comes out all right I'll give you something nice."
She ran up to her room, and soon returned with the beads. Walnut Grove was a few miles farther out on the turnpike than was her Uncle Henry's place; consequently it was too far from the town to walk. Bee chafed at the necessity of waiting until Joel could get the buggy ready, so impatient was she to put her new idea into practice. It was brought round at length, however, and soon she found herself entering the only hair dressing shop that the little town afforded.
"What can I do for you, Miss Raymond?" asked the proprietress coming forward.
"Miss Harris, can you change the color of the hair?" asked the girl abruptly.
"Certainly," answered Miss Harris, evidently surprised by the query. "Why?"
"Because I want you to change the color of mine," spoke Bee quickly.
Miss Harris hesitated.
"Does your father know of it, Miss Raymond?"
"Why! he wishes it," declared Bee with sincerity.
"Very well then. What color did you wish?"
"I want it sunny and yellow; with gold lights all through it," answered Bee promptly. "Can you do it?"
"Yes, Miss Raymond; but your complexion—"
"I know," interrupted Bee. "It should be fair to go with it. Can you help me about it?"
"No; I only do the hair. I don't know of any here who does treat the skin. It's a small place, you know."
"Yes;" assented Bee. Silently she watched the deft movements of the woman as she applied the bleach. It was done finally, and Bee found herself the possessor of locks as yellow as her cousin's. She eyed the result doubtfully.
"I like my own best," was her mental comment. "But if it pleases father I don't mind."
"You understand," said Miss Harris as the girl prepared to depart, "the application will have to be renewed as the hair grows. Otherwise it would be dark at the roots while the ends would be yellow."
"Will it?" asked Bee in dismay. "I thought that this was all there was to it."
"No. It takes time and patience to attain gold even in the hair." Miss Harris laughed at her little joke. "Whenever it needs touching up, come in and we'll soon fix you up."
"Thank you," said Beatrice as she left.
"It's going to take every cent of this month's allowance," she mused as she stopped at a milliner's and ordered a white chip hat with purple pansies for trimming sent home, "but it costs to be a beauty. One must dress for it, Adele always says. I always liked her best when she wore great big purple pansies on her hat. Now for the jimpson."
Jimpson weeds abounded by the roadside. Bee filled the bottom of the buggy with them, and then drove home. Ignoring Joel's surprised looks the girl reached the house without meeting any one else, and went directly to her room.
"I won't go down to dinner," was her thought. "I'll burst upon father in the morning like a new being. Won't he be surprised?"
"Man on the dubious waves of error tossed,His ship half foundered and his compass lost,Sees, far as human optics many command,A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land:Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies,Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies."—Truth. Cowper.
"Man on the dubious waves of error tossed,His ship half foundered and his compass lost,Sees, far as human optics many command,A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land:Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies,Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies."
—Truth. Cowper.
The night was warm, and Beatrice found her poultice exceedingly uncomfortable. She had heaped the leaves on a clean cloth, mashed them to a pulp, spread the mass between two other cloths through which were cut small holes for the eyes and nostrils, and then, with a resolution worthy of a better cause, bound the whole upon her face.
The juices of the crushed leaves soon wet the mask through and through, making her face wet and sticky. The greenish odor of the weed was sickening, and the poor child found her condition unpleasant to say the least. She tossed restlessly from side to side in the vain effort to find sleep, but slumber fled her call. The night wore on, and the mask became so oppressive that it seemed to stifle her.
"I can not stand it," she exclaimed at last, springing out of bed. "I can not! I shall smother."
She reached up to tear off the bandages that bound the suffocating thing on, but paused in the act.
"I must not give up," she said aloud. "I should be sorry in the morning if I did. I must stand it somehow, even though the night does seem as if it would never end. I must bear it."
Fortified by this determination she drew a chair to the window and tried to distract her thoughts by humming softly to herself.
"I know," she thought, tiring of this pastime. "I'll see if I can't make up some poetry, and forget all about the horrid thing. If it were not for father I would not stand it for a second. Let me see! I have it:
"Bee was an ugly duckling,And Adele a princess fair;Bee's locks were black and heavy,Adele had yellow hair.
"Bee was an ugly duckling,And Adele a princess fair;Bee's locks were black and heavy,Adele had yellow hair.
"Pshaw! That's sing-songy. I'll try again:
"Adele's hair is sunny and golden,Mine is as black as sin;For there's nothing yellow about meExcepting my yellow skin.
"Adele's hair is sunny and golden,Mine is as black as sin;For there's nothing yellow about meExcepting my yellow skin.
"Dear, dear! It's most as hard to make rhymes as to be beautiful. How long the night is!"
She arose and paced the floor restlessly. Eleven, then twelve o'clock struck. In all her life she had never spent a night without sleep. A first experience is very trying, and the hours seem interminable. At two o'clock she was about as miserable as she could well be, and only the thought of her father made her hold to her determination to stick it out. Suddenly she remembered that she had left a book she was reading on the library table.
"I'll go down and get it," she ejaculated, pleased with the distraction. "If anything will make me forget myself it's the 'Woman in White.'"
Suiting the action to the word she lighted a small night lamp, and glided softly down the stairs to the library. Turning the knob gently she opened the door, stepped across the threshold, and then—It was a wonder that she did not shriek aloud; for there in the room were two men, one of whom held a bag into which the other was putting the household silver which was piled on the table in front of them. They wore slouch hats drawn well down over their faces, and were working by the light of a dark lantern.
Beatrice entered so quietly that they did not notice her and for a second she stood unobserved, too frightened to speak. Then something made one of the men look up. A look of terror flashed into his eyes and his face whitened. The other turned to see what his companion was doing, but at sight of the figure that stood in the doorway he uttered a yell, dropped the bag, and ran for the window.
"It's a sperrit, Bill," he cried wildly. "Come on, man!"
Bill needed no second bidding. He glanced once more at the startling apparition and followed his comrade.
In truth Beatrice did present rather a ghostly appearance. She was clad in a long white night gown; her yellow hair bushed in all its bleached glory around the white mask through which her eyes gleamed with feverish brilliancy. The greenish juice of the jimpson had permeated the cloth, giving it just enough of a stain to be ghastly under the rays of the lamp. As the men gained the window the girl, hardly conscious of what she was doing, moved toward them. Uttering cries of fear the fellows jumped through and made a dash for the road. Doors began to open and close, and Bee knew that the household was aroused. It brought her to her senses quickly. She had been so frightened that she had not fully grasped the meaning of the scene through which she had just passed, but now it flashed upon her that it was her beautifying mask that had terrified the burglars.
"Father must not see me," she thought with an hysterical giggle. "I should frighten him, too."
There was not a moment to lose, so setting her lamp upon the table she crept under the couch and drew back as far as she could, just as her father ran in, followed by Aunt Fanny, Joel her husband, and old Uncle Billy, the gardener.
"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Dr. Raymond. "It's burglars. See, here is the silver. What made them leave it? Something scared them. What could it have been?"
"'Twuz a hant," cried Aunt Fanny, ashy with terror. "Didn't you heah 'em say 'twuz a hant?"
"It certainly sounded that way, but that is nonsense of course. Joel, do you come with me, and we will search the grounds. Uncle Billy, go at once to the stable and see if everything is all right there. Aunt Fanny will look after the house."
"Lawsie, Massa doctah, yer ain't a gwine ter leab me heah, is yer?" queried Aunt Fanny fearfully.
"Why, there is nothing to hurt you. Come on, Joel."
Dr. Raymond leaped through the window, followed by Joel, while Uncle Billy left for the stable. Aunt Fanny, left alone, began to soliloquize audibly:
"Hant, eh? I spec' hit's a hant. Dis house dun bin shet up too long fer it not to be a hant. Dis heah chile ain't a gwine ter stay in no house wid a hant. No, sah; she a gwine ter leab shore yer bo'n. She—"
"Aunt Fanny," spoke Bee in muffled tones.
"Good Lawd," cried Aunt Fanny, starting up. "Hit's the hant. Lawd, Lawd, spar dis niggah! You doesn't want no ole worman like me. You—"
"Hush, Aunt Fanny! It's only Bee. Don't you know me?"
Beatrice crept out of her hiding place and arose to her feet. Aunt Fanny gave a suppressed cry and sank back in her chair, staring at the girl in open-eyed wonder.
"You, you ain't no Miss Bee," she gasped.
"Yes, I am. I just had my hair fixed at the hairdresser's this afternoon, and I have on that jimpson poultice you told me about. I came down stairs to get a book and frightened the robbers away. I want to go upstairs now before father comes back so he won't see me."
"Yas; go on up stairs," said Aunt Fanny severely, now completely reassured. "Yer pa mustn't see you like dat. He won't 'prove ob no sech doin's, an' I doesn't eider. Yaller ha'r! Looks like flax! No'm; yer pa oughtn't ter see yer."
"Then don't say a word about seeing me," cautioned Bee, turning to go. "You won't, will you?"
"I ain't gwine ter say nuffin'. 'Tain't none ob my lookout ef yer wants ter spile yer ha'r. I ain't gwine ter hab nuffin' ter do wid hit," returned the negress with dignity.
So, feeling very much like a culprit, Bee stole upstairs. Presently she heard her father re-enter the house, and soon there came a rap on her door.
"What is it?" she asked from under the cover which, girl like, she had drawn over her as soon as she was safely in bed.
"Are you all right, Beatrice?" came her father's voice.
"Yes father."
"Don't be alarmed, but—" Dr. Raymond hesitated, evidently considering whether it would be best to tell her about the intruders. "You are not nervous, are you?"
"No——o;" answered Bee weakly. She was.
She would have liked to have somebody cuddle her for a time, but—there was that awful mask.
"If you should be disturbed about anything, Beatrice, just call me. I shall be in the next room, where I shall read for the remainder of the night."
"Thank you, father," said the girl gratefully. "I was afraid, but I won't be now."
"Then good night."
"Good night, father," replied the maiden who little guessed that her father went away from her door wondering and perplexed that she did not come out to speak with him, and to find what was the matter.
Her father's near presence brought so much of comfort to Bee's heart that she found herself forgetting all about the discomfort of the jimpson, and after a time she fell into a troubled sleep.
"We are much bound to them that do succeed;But, in a more pathetic sense, are boundTo such as fail."—Jean Ingelow.
"We are much bound to them that do succeed;But, in a more pathetic sense, are boundTo such as fail."
—Jean Ingelow.
It was morning. The long night with its wretchedness and discomfort had passed, and the bright sunshine full of cheer streamed into the room, athwart the bed where Beatrice lay, her features still hidden under the beautifying mask. She stirred uneasily and then opened her eyes.
"Why, it's morning," she exclaimed, jumping up briskly. "Thank goodness, I can take off this horrible thing at last. I ought to be fair as a lily after all I've gone through. My, my how funny my face feels!" She untied the fastenings with a sigh of relief, and threw off the poultice thankfully.
"My skin is sticky and tight," she mused, passing one hand over her face. "I won't look at myself until I am dressed, and then I can tell just how I shall affect father. Let me see! I'll wear white. Adele looks best in white. Fair people always do, I think."
True to her resolve she bathed and dressed without once approaching the mirror. At length she was ready. She had no doubts as to the result. Beatrice was possessed with a child's faith; still, her heart began to beat quickly as she turned slowly and went toward the glass, keeping her eyes downcast.
"It's just like a butterfly breaking out of the chrysalis," she told herself nervously. "I have been an ugly grub for so long that I'm afraid to try my new wings. Now, ready, Beatrice! One, two, three!—Look, and see how beautiful you have become."
Smilingly she raised her eyes. The smile froze on her lips, and consternation swept over her face. Her features were distorted and swollen, and her skin was as yellow as saffron. With her dark eyes, bleached hair, and white dress the effect was startling. For one long moment the girl stared at her reflection, and then, as the full realization of the transformation came home to her, she flung herself upon the bed with a cry of anguish.
"It's no use," she wailed. "Everything is against me. I look worse than ever. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
A knock sounded on the door just then, and Bee started up, fearing that it was her father.
"Yes?" she called.
"Yer pa am a-waitin' fer yer, Miss Bee," came the voice of Aunt Fanny. "He say de brek'fus am gittin' cole."
"Aunt Fanny, come here!" Beatrice opened the door and pulled the old woman inside. "Look at my face! This comes from using that jimpson weed poultice. Now what am I going to do?"
The negress gave a gasp at sight of the girl's face, and threw up her hands in dismay.
"Lawsie, chile! How kum yer ter do sech a fool thing? A niggah dunno nuffin' nohow. 'Sides, yer can't do hit in one night. Co'se not. Takes two; mebbe three. I dunno."
"Then why did you tell me about it if you didn't know?" demanded Bee indignantly. "You said that it would make me as fair as the lily of the valley. Now, I've just ruined my face. Oh oh, oh!"
She began to cry weakly. Aunt Fanny smoothed her hair in an attempt at consolation.
"I'se just a low-down niggah ter make yer cry so, Miss Bee," she said remorsefully. "Dey does use jim'son in de Souf, but mebbe dey puts sompin elsen wid hit. Nebber you mind. Aunt Fanny'll fin' sumpin ter fix yer. Now go down ter yer pa. De brek'fus am gittin' cole, an' yer needs hit hot."
"Go down?" cried Bee in perturbation. "I can't go down like this. You go, and tell father I'm sick. Tell him I can't come. Oh! tell him anything!"
"Beatrice," called her father at this moment from the foot of the stairs, "is anything the matter? You were not at dinner last night. Are you ill that you don't come to breakfast?"
"I reckon yer shorely in fer hit, Miss Bee," spoke Aunt Fanny commiseratingly. "If yer sick he's gwine ter kum up anyhow. De bes' thing is ter go right erlong, and get hit over wid. An' if he scolds hard yer won't nebber forgib me."
"It is my own fault, Aunt Fanny," acknowledged the girl. "I ought to have known better than to have done anything of the sort. Now I am in for it, as you say. Yes; I'll go down. Father can't dislike me any more than he does, so I might as well face him first as last." She rose as she spoke and went to the door: "I am all right, father," she called. "I'll be down in a minute."
It was more than a minute before she could pull herself together; then, summoning all her fortitude, she went slowly down the stairs to the dining room. Dr. Raymond turned at her entrance.
"Good morn—" he began in greeting, but stopped short as though he could not believe the evidence of his eyes. "Beatrice Raymond, is that you?" he demanded.
"Yes," returned Beatrice as steadily as she could. "It is I, father. Are you ready for your coffee?"
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked sharply. "What have you been doing to yourself?"
Something came into Bee's throat and choked her. A moment passed before she could reply.
"I have been trying to make myself beautiful, but it did not work well," she said at last in a low tone.
"Beautiful!" exclaimed Doctor Raymond in disgust. "Is vanity also one of your weaknesses? I begin to believe that you are a bundle of them. Only a silly, vain girl would be guilty of such folly. I am sorely disappointed in you, Beatrice."
Again Bee choked so that she could not speak, and her eyes swam with tears. Had she so many follies? People used not to think she was such a dreadful girl. They used to be fond of her, but everything was going wrong lately. With hands that shook she silently poured her father's coffee and handed it to him.
"How any girl," went on her father, seeing that she did not speak, "how any girl should go deliberately to work to make such a fright of herself as you have done is beyond my comprehension. I suppose that all girls are more or less foolish about their complexions; but no girl of refinement should bleach her hair. It is an abomination to every self-respecting person. What caused you to do it?"
Beatrice's heart was very full. She had done it for his sake, but she found it impossible to tell him. She had been content enough until he had come, and was dissatisfied with her. His words hurt her cruelly. Presently she found her voice:
"I was trying to look like Adele," she told him tearfully.
"You were?" Struck by something in her tone the scientist glanced at her more closely. He saw that she was not eating anything, and that she was trembling. His manner softened. Bee was aware of the change instantly, and attributed it to the mention of her cousin. Her tears dried, and she was shaken with sudden anger.
"Your cousin is a beautiful girl, Beatrice. She seems to be as lovely in disposition as in person. I do not at all wonder that you desire to be like her, but your manner of emulation has not been the most happy. Perhaps I spoke too severely. We are all prone to error, and I should not judge too harshly what, it seems, has been done from a worthy motive. If you wish to be like Adele, strive to copy her character rather than to imitate her outward appearance. Beauty of soul is the thing that counts. Before a sweet disposition and a well informed mind mere physical beauty palls."
"That is not true," burst from Beatrice; "and you know it."
"Beatrice Raymond, do you know to whom you are speaking?" The naturalist dropped his knife and fork, and stared at his daughter in amazement.
"Yes, I do;" answered Bee, wrought up to such a pitch that she forgot the respect and deference due her father. If the mere mention of her cousin's name had such influence upon him, she would let him know how she felt about it; so she continued wrathfully: "You and Aunt Annie, and everybody, are fond of talking about the cultivation of the mind and spirit being above beauty, but you don't practice what you preach. Look at what you have been saying, and then think of how you have treated me."
"Why, why," stammered Doctor Raymond, so surprised by this vehement outburst that he scarcely knew what to say.
"You were away ten long, long years," went on Beatrice, almost beside herself with passion; all her pent-up unhappiness clamoring for utterance. "I was just crazy for you to come home. Other girls had their fathers and I wanted mine too. When you wrote that you were coming I was happy; as happy as a bird. You had written that you wished my mind cultivated, and I studied hard to please you. I knew that you were a learned man, and I wanted to be able to talk to you intelligently. You wanted me to learn to be a good housekeeper, and that, too, I studied. I have tried to do everything that you wished me to. You say that you are disappointed in me. How do you think that I feel about you? You will have nothing to say to me because I am not Adele. You wanted her for your daughter, and you can't get over it because she isn't. In your last letter to me you said that you thought that I must have a mind of uncommon intelligence. Have I? You have not troubled to find out. What kind of a disposition have I? You don't know. And why? Just because I don't happen to be pretty. 'Sweet disposition and well informed mind' are all very well to talk about, but when it comes right down to real truth a girl might as well be dead if she isn't pretty."
"You are giving me a terrible arraignment, Beatrice," observed her father gravely. "Really, I—"
"Isn't it all true?" demanded Bee with startling directness.
"I think that probably some of it is," admitted Doctor Raymond guardedly. "The discussion of beauty and non-beauty we will not prolong because we could come to no satisfactory conclusion on the matter. It is an old, old question. Beauty undoubtedly has its influence upon us all; chiefly, perhaps, because it at once attracts the attention. After all, it is but a free gift of nature accorded to its possessor by accident. It was not altogether Adele's beauty that caused me to claim her for my daughter."
"But—" began Beatrice.
"Allow me the privilege of a word, my daughter. The unfortunate mistake of the picture is largely responsible for this whole affair. I naturally looked long and often at the photograph, supposing it to be yours. Seeing her standing in the doorway I recognized the girl whom I supposed was my daughter. Surely this explanation ought to excuse me, Beatrice?"
"But it was her picture that brought you home, father," wailed Bee miserably. "You would never have come had it been really mine. Oh, that is what I can't bear!"
"I seem unfortunate in choosing my words also," said the scientist, stirring uneasily. "The letters first caused me to think of returning."
"But you would not have come if you had not believed that the beautiful picture was of your daughter," persisted Bee. "I want the truth, father."
"I am accustomed to speaking nothing else," answered Doctor Raymond sternly. "All this is aside from the question."
"Is it?" asked the girl with some scorn. "I think not; but you needn't answer, father. Explain your treatment of me after you found out your mistake. What effort have you made to find out what kind of a daughter you have? You hardly come near me. You were away for years, and now that you are home at last you are further from me than ever because I did have your letters; now I have nothing. I may be as brilliant as a diamond, or as simple as a daisy, but you don't care to take the trouble to find out."
"Well, I have been exceedingly busy," replied he lamely. "And you have not——You see—" He did not wish to say that she had not presented a very inviting side of her character to him. Beatrice did not know this, so she did not wait for him to finish.
"Yes, I see, father," she said wearily. She was beginning to feel very tired. The reaction of the unusual emotion was having its effect. "You are just like everybody else. You talk of mind and disposition easily enough, but you succumb to beauty at first sight. At school it was the same. All of us were made to toe the mark except Adele. Nothing was ever expected of her but to be beautiful. I did not care until you came, and were disappointed in me. Then I tried protective mimicry, but it wasn't successful."
Doctor Raymond glanced up quickly.
"What do you know about protective mimicry?" he asked.
"It's where one animal puts on the form of another animal to protect itself from enemies," answered Bee. "I thought that if I could make myself like Adele you would come to care for me."
"And was that what caused you to bleach your hair, and change your complexion?"
"Yes, father. You would not notice me, so I just had to do something. And now it's no use."
"I am not so sure about that." Doctor Raymond began to laugh. "You have worked upon the principle held by some great men, Beatrice. Henry Ward Beecher used to say: 'If you can't make people love you, make them hate you. Anything is better than indifference.'"
"Oh, father!" cried the unhappy girl, bursting into tears. "Have I made you hate me?"
"Nonsense! Of course not. I only meant—"
"A gen'man to see you, sah," announced Aunt Fanny at this inopportune moment, and the entomologist was obliged to leave the room.