The Omen of the Butterfly
"Light and silv'ry cloudlets hover
In the air as yet scarce warm;
Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over,
Peeps the sun through fragrant balm."
_May Song. Goethe._
"I am so glad that I sent it," exclaimed Beatrice again and again after
posting the letter and the photograph. "Father has always wanted my
picture, but I waited hoping that sometime I'd get a good one. Still, it
will give him an idea of how I look even though it is a poor likeness. I
do wonder if he will like it!"
And with a roguish smile Adele would answer: "I think so, Bee."
The days passed. With more than her usual impatience Bee waited for an
answer to her letter. If the connections were prompt, if he were not
away from civilization on an extended butterfly hunt, if he wrote just
as soon as he received it, she ought to hear by the last of May, she
told herself; so, having arrived at this conclusion, she tried to rest
in patience until that time should come.
At length the timid beauties of April were merged into the exuberance of
the leaf and flower of May, and Nature was resplendent in the full glory
of the springtide. The last day of the month fell upon a Saturday, and
early in the morning of that day Bee dressed herself to go into town for
the mail. Seating herself upon the steps of the piazza to wait for Adele
who was to accompany her she feasted her eyes upon the beauty of the
orchard whose trees seemed like great pink and white bouquets set in the
ground. Suddenly a puff of wind stirred the branches, and sent the
petals of the apple blossoms flying in every direction.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the girl springing up from the steps in pretended
dismay as a shower of the fragrant blooms deluged her. "Snow in May! I
told Adele that it would be Christmas before she was ready. Come out,
and see the storm, Aunt Annie."
A lady standing just inside a long French window which opened upon the
porch came through it to her niece's side.
"What an idea!" she said in a clear musical voice.
"Get the broom, Bee, and sweep off the steps. I shall be glad when the
blossoms are gone. They make such a litter."
"Why, Aunt Annie, glad when the blossoms are gone? You can't mean it.
Just look at those trees! Did you ever see anything so pretty?"
"They are pretty enough, child," returned Mrs. Raymond carelessly.
"There! cease your rhapsodies, and get the broom. When you have seen as
many Springs as I have you won't be quite so ecstatic over them."
"I believe that I'll always feel just as I do now," declared Bee as she
ran for the broom. "When the trees begin to bud something gets into my
being that makes me feel like--like--Oh, like Alexander the Great: that
I could conquer the world."
"It's the wine of youth in your blood, Bee." The lady smiled at the
girl's enthusiasm. "That's what it is to be young. You are very like
your father."
"Am I, auntie?" Beatrice flushed with pleasure.
"Yes. At least you are in regard to your feeling for Nature. He sees
beauty in everything; or used to do so. It seems to be a family trait of
the Raymonds. I don't notice it so much in Adele; but then she takes
after my people."
"Perhaps it is because she is so beautiful herself," remarked Bee
meditatively. "I've noticed that people don't prize what they themselves
possess."
"Don't say that, Bee. You are far from being homely," spoke Mrs. Raymond
graciously, noting a trace of wistfulness in her niece's tone. "Beside,
'Beauty is only skin--'"
"Yes; I know, Aunt Annie. Spare me!" The girl put her hand in laughing
protest over her aunt's mouth. "Still, I wouldn't mind having the skin.
I just believe that that saying, and the other: 'Handsome is as handsome
does,' were invented by some ugly old thing with a skin as yellow as a
pumpkin. Oh, here is Adele at last!"
Mrs. Raymond laughed, and turned toward the door through which her
daughter came, her face aglow with pride.
"Beatrice has been ready a long time," she chided, the gentleness of her
tone softening the reproof. "You should not have kept her waiting, my
daughter, when this is the day she is expecting a letter from her
father."
"Don't scold her, auntie," pleaded Bee gazing at her cousin with
admiring eyes. "Oh, Adele! how do you make yourself look so pretty?"
Adele smiled, well pleased. She was accustomed to being told of her
beauty, but she never wearied of the homage it exacted.
"You look nice too, Bee," she said condescendingly with a glance of
approval at Beatrice's white robed figure. "Aren't you going to wear any
hat?"
"I am going to carry it until we reach the road." Bee caught up a broad
brimmed leghorn from a chair, and held it carelessly by the strings. "I
don't like to wear one any more than I have to. I'll beat you to the
gate, Adele."
"A race?" Adele drew her brows together in a prim little frown. "Such
great girls as we are. Why, we are almost young ladies! It would not be
proper."
"Bother propriety!" ejaculated her cousin. "There is a whole year before
we are sixteen. We don't need to give up running until then. Do we,
auntie?"
"No;" answered her aunt indulgently. "Be girls just as long as you can.
You will be young ladies soon enough. I wish Adele would take more
exercise."
"Just through the orchard then," cried Adele catching up her skirts
daintily. "Here goes! Oh, Bee!"
"What's the matter?" asked Bee, surprised.
"No wonder you could be dressed before I was," exclaimed Adele in
shocked tones. "There are three buttons of your dress unfastened."
"Are there?" Bee backed up to her unconcernedly. "Do button them, like a
dear. I never was good at closing exercises."
Adele giggled appreciatively.
"Professor Lawrence says that closing exercises should be marked by
decorum as well as dispatch," she remarked in didatic accents. "I
observe the dispatch, Miss Raymond, but I must say--"
"Oh, hurry up," interrupted Bee impatiently. "What's a button more or
less on such a glorious day as this? Come on, or I shall run a race
with my shadow."
"Catch me then." Adele darted away quickly. "If I beat I shall read your
letter first."
"Good-bye, dears," called Mrs. Raymond after them. "Don't let her beat
you, Bee."
"I won't, auntie," Beatrice paused long enough to say, and then sped
after her cousin.
There were ripples of sunshine all tangled over the bowers of apple
blooms, and dancing blithely over the mats of blue violets in the grass.
Gold belted honeybees hummed a song of contentment in every flowery
cluster. Gauze-winged dragon flies darted hither and thither, while
butterflies sailed by on new born wings of bronze, and scarlet and gold.
The wind laughed a gleeful accompaniment to the merry maidens who ran
gaily down the path o'ershadowed by the trees. Adele's graceful form was
in the lead, but Beatrice was gradually gaining upon her. At length, as
they were nearing the edge of the orchard, Bee gave an exultant shout
and passed her cousin, reaching the gate just ahead of her.
"Weren't you awfully afraid that I'd get to read that letter?" laughed
Adele as, flushed and panting, she leaned against the gate. "How fast
you do run, Bee! I am all out of breath."
"So am I," admitted Bee. "We will have time to rest for a moment before
going on to the office. Take off your hat, and you will soon be cool."
She swung her own back and forth by the strings as she spoke.
"I'm afraid of freckles," sighed her cousin.
"Gracious!" ejaculated Bee, quickly putting her hat on her head. "I had
forgotten all about freckles. How can you always remember, Adele?"
"Perhaps if you had to take the care of your skin that I do, you would
not forget either."
"But don't you ever get tired of it? I should think that you would want
to go bareheaded sometimes."
"I would, Bee; but I like to keep my skin nice too. One can't do both."
"Can't one?" asked Bee thoughtfully. "I should think that the skin would
need air and sunshine just like the flowers, and the butterflies, and
all other pretty growing things."
"Mamma always puts her lillies in the shade, doesn't she?" queried Adele
laughing. "It keeps them white, and that's the reason she tells me to
keep on my hat. Tan and freckles may be healthful, but they are not
pretty. At least she doesn't think so. Do you know the reason that I
always give Dolly Madison as my favorite character in history, Bee?"
"No. I have wondered about it. I should think you would prefer Queen
Elizabeth, or Joan of Arc, or somebody like them. I like women who do
things. Miss Rosa Bonheur, Miss Herschel, or Grace Darling suit me
better."
"Well, I like Dolly best because I sympathize with her. When she was a
little girl her mother cut holes in her sunbonnet, and tied her hair
through them so that she couldn't throw it off. She had a pretty skin
too, and her mother didn't want it to get tanned, or sun-burned. I
always think of what Dolly had to go through whenever I want to throw
off my hat, and it helps me to keep it on. I know just how she felt
about that everlasting bonnet. But after a while, you know, she became
the mistress of the White House."
Bee laughed outright.
"Is that the reason that you are taking such good care of your
complexion?" she asked teasingly. "I never thought it of you, Adele."
"Laugh if you want to," retorted Adele.
"Isn't Professor Lawrence always telling the boys that one of them may
be President of the United States some day, and that every one of them
is eligible? Now the President has to have a wife, doesn't he? Well, I
never could see why a girl mightn't look forward to being the Mistress
of the White House as well as a boy might expect to be President."
"If having a perfect complexion is one of the essentials toward becoming
the Mistress of the White House you are right in line for the position,"
said Bee wiping her eyes. "Never mind, Adele! I was just having a little
fun. Your skin is lovely, and I expect I would be just as careful as you
are if it were mine. I wonder how it would feel to be a beauty!"
"It's a great responsibility," declared Adele with a toss of her head.
"There is so much to live up to. If I am the least bit untidy some one
is sure to say: 'Such a pretty girl should always be neat and dainty.'
Or, 'beauty and dirt don't go together, my dear.' While you--you can be
as careless as you wish, and no one thinks anything about it."
"I am not so sure about that." Bee shook her head dubiously. "Aunt Annie
is always taking me to task for my untidiness. And there is much
demanded of me in other ways. If you are expected to be neat and dainty
at all times, I am urged to be industrious."
"'How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!'"
quoted Adele in a sing-song tone. "Isn't that what the girls are always
saying, Bee? I never see you flying about the house helping mamma, or
running errands, or pouring over your books that I don't think of the
'Little busy bee.' Now I can't find time to do anything except to dress,
and to keep myself looking nice."
"Well, a butterfly is not expected to do anything but to fly in the sun,
and be happy," laughed Bee. "And you are like a golden and white
butterfly, Adele. Bees must make honey. They are too homely to do
anything else, while butterflies--"
"Speaking of butterflies," interrupted Adele quickly. "There is one just
about to light on your head."
"What kind is it?" queried Beatrice holding her head very still, and
speaking anxiously. "I hope it isn't a cabbage butterfly. I shouldn't
like to think that even a butterfly would take my head for a cabbage."
"It's yellow and black, Bee. Is that the cabbage butterfly? I don't know
as much about such things as you do."
"The cabbage butterfly is white. Has it settled yet?"
"Yes." Adele watched as a yellow and black Swallow Tail poised gently
upon Bee's head for a moment, and then flew away. "There! it's gone."
"That's a good omen," declared Bee turning toward the gate. "Whenever a
butterfly lights on your head it means favorable news from a distance.
There will be something good in father's letter, I know. Come, Adele!
lets hurry so that we can get it."
Adele straightened her hat a little, and then the two girls set off for
the postoffice.