"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."