“‘Mrs. Clyde requests the pleasure of,’—yes, Aunt Lucinda,—Kitty Clark,—she’s that redheaded girl, Aunt Lucinda?”

“Yes, Elizabeth.”

“Well, I’ve requested ‘the pleasure of Miss Kitty Clark’s company,’ all right,” Blue Bonnet observed a moment later. She sighed wearily. “It would have been a whole lot easier if we’d just stuck a notice up in the post-office, Aunt Lucinda.”

“Elizabeth!”

Under their long lashes, Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced mischievously. She was learning how to draw forth that particular note of shocked astonishment; and to rather enjoy doing it.

“Who’s next, Aunt Lucinda?” she asked.

“That will be all.”

“Only six! Why I’ve seen a heap of girls at church, Aunt Lucinda!”

“A what, Elizabeth?”

“Ever ’n’ ever so many, Aunt Lucinda.”

“Certainly.”

“Won’t the others be disappointed?”

“Really, Elizabeth, I do not know.” “But, Aunt Lucinda, aren’t there to be any boys? Isn’t Alec coming?”

“The invitations are all written, Elizabeth.”

“Don’t you like boys, Aunt Lucinda?”

“Suppose you direct the envelopes now, Elizabeth.”

Blue Bonnet bit her lips; she was not used to having her remarks set aside in this fashion.

When the last envelope had been added to the little pile, lying on the desk before her, she drew a deep breath of relief. “I think I’ll take Solomon for a run,” she said.

“Have you done your practising yet, Elizabeth?” her aunt asked.

“No, Aunt Lucinda.”

“Then you would better go to it now; by the time you are through I shall be at liberty to go over your Latin with you.”

“If you please, Aunt Lucinda, I’d so much rather go over the fields with Solomon, instead.”

“Elizabeth!”

And Blue Bonnet, as she went across the hall to the dim back parlor, felt that Aunt Lucinda thought she had meant to be impertinent. “When it was just the straight truth,” the girl said. As she went to throw open the blinds, the riot of color in the garden beyond caught and held her. It would be easier practising with a great bunch of fragrant nasturtiums beside her. But the nasturtiums took a long time to gather, particularly as Solomon, finding her there, kept making little rushes among the flower-beds—which were strictly forbidden ground. Solomon was getting more in evidence every day. Blue Bonnet had secret visions of the time when he should even be tolerated in the house. “The stable, indeed!” she said now. “You’re not going to stay that kind of a dog, are you, sir?”

Solomon barked an emphatic negative.

“Doesn’t the air feel good, Solomon?” Blue Bonnet said. “But I reckon I’ll have to be going back to the house. Take my advice, old fellow, and never go in for music in summer-time; there’s too much practising about it.”

“Elizabeth!” Aunt Lucinda called from the piazza.

And Blue Bonnet obeyed hurriedly.

“You should have closed the blinds again when you were through in the parlor, Elizabeth,” Miss Clyde said.

Blue Bonnet came to a sudden halt at the foot of the piazza steps. “But, Aunt Lucinda, I wasn’t through! I—I haven’t begun. It can’t be an hour! I only went out for a moment to gather some flowers.”

“Bring your Latin grammar, Elizabeth; your practising must wait now until after dinner.”

“But dinner isn’t till two o’clock, Aunt Lucinda! I won’t get through until nearly four! I sha’n’t have any afternoon at all!”

“Whose fault is that, Elizabeth?”

Latin verbs did not progress very well that morning; both teacher and pupil were glad when the hour was over.

Blue Bonnet went to spend the intervening twenty minutes before dinner in the hammock on the front piazza. Uncle Giff’s easy rule had hardly prepared the girl for the orderly, busy routine that life stood for in this staid old house. Mrs. Clyde, coming out presently, saw the shadow on Blue Bonnet’s face, and, bit by bit, drew the story of the morning from her.

“I didn’t mean not to practise,” the girl said; “but I was so tired writing those notes; some of them got blotted and had to be done over; and I was wild to get out—and it wasn’t fair of—”

“Careful, Elizabeth!”

Blue Bonnet colored. They forgot that she was fifteen and—and—mistress of the Blue Bonnet Ranch.

“Elizabeth,” her grandmother said, gravely, “suppose you try to look at things from your aunt’s point of view. Remember, dear, she is trying to do her best by a very heedless, motherless girl.”

All resentment vanished from Blue Bonnet’s blue eyes. Just before dinner she appeared before Miss Clyde, Latin grammar in hand.

“I think I know that verb now, Aunt Lucinda,” she said. “Will there be time to hear me say it?”

Miss Clyde took the book.

Blue Bonnet did know that verb; knew it in all its various moods and tenses with the thoroughness her aunt delighted in. “That was very well done, Elizabeth,” she said.

And Blue Bonnet found the quiet words of commendation well worth while.

Conversation during dinner, led by Mrs. Clyde, concerned itself chiefly with the coming tea-party. Tea-parties were unknown things to Blue Bonnet. It seemed to her that they were rather serious affairs. Especially did it appear too bad to go to so much trouble for so few guests; and she could not get over her feeling of sympathy for those left out.

“These are the young girls from among whom your grandmother and I wish you to choose your friends, Elizabeth,” her aunt told her.

“Then I’m not to like them all, Aunt Lucinda?”

“Certainly, if you find them all congenial.”

“I hope some of them are a little more lively than Sarah Blake,” Blue Bonnet observed thoughtfully. “I don’t dislike Sarah, but I can’t say as I’m very keen on her—yet.”

“It is not good taste to criticize your friends, Elizabeth.” “I’m not sure she is going to be a friend, Aunt Lucinda.”

“Elizabeth!”

Whereupon, Blue Bonnet asked to be excused, and went to her practising. “I’m getting a bit tired of being—‘Elizabethed,’” she said, screwing up the piano-stool with quite unnecessary vigor.

Thursday, the day set for the tea-party, was in Blue Bonnet’s estimation a perfect day. Wednesday had been decidedly hot; but during the night a sudden change had come, and to-day the air was clear and fresh, with a touch of the coming fall in it. It sent the blood thrilling through Blue Bonnet’s veins, and made her if anything more careless and inconsequent than usual.

All the morning the outdoor world was calling to her, getting in return more than one involuntary response. About noontime, Alec came whistling up the back path, Bob and Ben at his heels. Blue Bonnet was on the steps studying.

“Busy?” he asked.

“I’m through now, thank Fortune!”

“Then you can come?”

“Where?”

“Did you ever follow a brook?”

Blue Bonnet threw down her book and caught up her shade hat from a nearby chair. “Let’s start right away!” They went down the path to where a gate opened into a wide open meadow, Blue Bonnet whistling to Solomon as they went.

At the foot of the meadow lay the brook; a sunny, quiet enough little brook, until, further on, it suddenly entered the woods, where it laughed and gurgled and tumbled headlong over rocks in the most delightful way.

Halfway towards the woods, Alec halted. “Wait a bit, Elizabeth,” he said, “and I’ll cut back to the house and get Norah to put us up some lunch.”

“All right,” Blue Bonnet agreed, sitting down in the long meadow-grass to wait. The three dogs had disappeared on an important chase, and she was left all alone. From where she sat there was nothing to be seen but open fields and blue sky; and these sent her thoughts homeward. She had been two weeks in Woodford. Looking back now, they seemed to have been rather long weeks. She had spent so much of them indoors, and there had been so many things to be done, to be learned.

Lying on her back in the tall grass, Blue Bonnet tried to imagine herself back on the prairie. She forgot that she hated the prairie. Oh, but it was good to be out in the open air and sunshine, doing nothing, wanting nothing, caring for nothing!

Alec’s halloa brought her back to the present. He came up at a quick pace, a small covered basket in his hand. “Was I very long?” he asked. “Long enough for me to get to Texas and back.”

“I’d like to have made the trip with you.”

Blue Bonnet had scrambled to her feet. “I think I shall come out here every day for a whole hour and do nothing,” she said.

“I do nothing every day at home—for more than an hour,” Alec answered. “It’s pretty slow work sometimes.”

They had reached the woods now, the brook a slender, noisy thread beside them. On and on they followed it; now on this side, now on that; talking, laughing, growing better acquainted every moment. Ahead of them, the three dogs raced and barked and behaved in the absurd, carefree way usual with puppies.

“Isn’t Solomon getting better-looking every day?” Blue Bonnet said.

“Is he? He must have been a beauty at the start,” Alec declared.

“Oh, he isn’t a thoroughbred—except as to his feelings; but he’s a mighty nice dog. He’s devoted to Aunt Lucinda.”

“Does she return his devotion?”

“I honestly think she does like him a little; and she really is good to him,” Blue Bonnet said, soberly.

“He’s having the time of his life now, all right,” Alec laughed. A moment later he came to a sudden halt; he had been fighting against the need for rest for the last half-hour. It was intolerable to be played out in this way, with Blue Bonnet showing not the slightest sign of fatigue.

“We might camp here,” he suggested. In spite of himself, he could not keep the tiredness out of his voice.

Blue Bonnet looked up at him. “Yes,” she said quickly, “this will be fine.”

They spread the napkin covering the basket over a flat stone and laid out the lunch.

“My, but I’m hungry,” Blue Bonnet declared. “It’s fun, isn’t it, eating out-of-doors?”

Alec nodded.

“I’m having a tea-party this afternoon,” Blue Bonnet said. “Just a lot of girls, or you should have been invited.”

“I’m afraid I don’t like tea-parties,” Alec laughed.

“This is my first. I think it’s going to be lots of fun; only I’m scared I sha’n’t do Aunt Lucinda credit.”

“There isn’t anything to do, except put on your best duds and act ‘proper.’”

Blue Bonnet took a second sandwich. “But acting ‘proper’ in Woodford seems to mean such a lot.”

“What time does the shindig come off?”

“Half-past five. Sarah Blake’s coming, and Kitty Clark, Amanda Parker, Debby Slade, and Ruth and Susy Doyle. I know Sarah and Debby; they’ve called. There are a lot of girls in Woodford, aren’t they?”

“Loads. And I’ll bet my best hat that not a single one of them, if they had a tea-party on, would be off tramping the woods like this,” Alec said, passing the apple turnovers and cheese.

“But it isn’t until afternoon!” Blue Bonnet exclaimed. “Oh, Alec, think how nearly summer is over! School’ll be beginning soon now. It’s going to be odd, having a woman teacher; I’ve always studied under tutors. I’ve had a lot of different ones. Aunt Lucinda says that largely accounts for my ‘desultory habits.’ But I’ve read a good deal. Uncle Cliff used to have a box of books sent out every little while. I haven’t kept up my music very well—all of the tutors weren’t musical. I can play by ear, though; but Aunt Lucinda says it would be better if I didn’t.”

“What makes you quote Miss Clyde so much?” Alec asked.

Blue Bonnet laughed. “Because it seems somehow as if it were Aunt Lucinda who was running this ranch.” She leaned back against a gnarled old stump. “Sometimes I wish,” she said, “that there were two of me—so that one of us could stay at home and be taught things, and behave nicely, while the other went wandering about as she liked.” “You might adopt Sarah for your alter ego,” Alec suggested.

“It’s very puzzling—how people get mixed up. Sarah would have been such a suitable niece for Aunt Lucinda; though I really don’t believe,” Blue Bonnet’s blue eyes twinkled, “that she would have suited Grandmother as well as I do. Alec, it’s so—queer, being in a family where there are just women.”

“I’ve never tried it; sometimes I’ve thought it seemed rather lonesome being in a family where there weren’t any women.” Alec commenced to gather up the dishes, tossing the scraps to the dogs.

Blue Bonnet’s eyes were thoughtful. “It’s strange how much we have in common. Oh, Alec, I ought to be doing that!”

“It’s all done,” Alec answered.

“Sarah would’ve?”

“Yes, and washed the dishes in the brook, and tidied things up generally.”

“But at home no one ever expected me to do anything like that,” Blue Bonnet explained; “that’s the reason I’m always forgetting now.”

The talk drifted from Texas to Woodford and back again; broken by long pauses, in which each was content to sit silent in the soft green twilight of the woods, listening to the faint rustling of the trees overhead, the murmuring of the brook, and the occasional call of a bird. It was a good while before Alec looked at his watch; then he sprang to his feet. “Elizabeth, you’ve got exactly one hour and a half in which to make a two hour and a half walk, and get into your company duds.”

Blue Bonnet stared up at him, too astonished to move. “Alec, it isn’t four o’clock!”

“Three minutes after—now!”

“And they don’t even know where I am!” Blue Bonnet gasped.

“We’ll have to do some pretty tall sprinting,” Alec said.

It seemed to Blue Bonnet that after miles of hurried, heated scrambling they were still fathoms deep in those interminable woods. She felt that Alec was hurrying far beyond his strength; but he would not let her go on without him. She had given up counting the numbers of times she had stepped into the brook instead of over it, and the tears in her skirt.

Then at last, rounding a sharp curve, they saw the open meadow before them. They were crossing it when Alec held up his hand. “Listen!” he said.

Faint and clear through the summer stillness sounded the village clock, striking half-past five.

Suddenly the humor of the situation struck Blue Bonnet. “My first tea-party!” she gasped, between paroxysms of laughter.

“Come on,” Alec warned her. “There’s some one watching for you now down at the gate; probably there are scouts out in every direction.”

The watcher was Delia, the second girl. “Oh, Miss Elizabeth,” she cried, “we’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

At the back door, Miss Clyde met Blue Bonnet. “Elizabeth!” she exclaimed, in tones of mingled relief and displeasure, “where have you been?”

“Following a brook with Alec, Aunt Lucinda.”

“With your guests waiting in the parlor, and tea-time set for half-past five! Go up to your room at once—I have laid out your things—we will talk of this later.”

Blue Bonnet stumbled blindly upstairs; sitting on the floor to change her shoes and stockings, she could hardly see the lacings for the tears blinding her eyes.

Everything went wrong; strings went into knots; pins pricked her. Worst of all, her heavy hair got into a hopeless tangle. She was struggling with it desperately, trying to get out the bits of twigs and dried moss, when someone, coming up behind her, took the brush from her hands. “Let me try, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Clyde said.

Soon, as if by magic, the soft thick braid was ready for its white ribbon. And all the time Mrs. Clyde had not spoken again, but the look in her eyes was harder to meet than Aunt Lucinda’s displeasure had been. “Have I been very bad, Grandmother?” the girl asked, wistfully.

“I cannot say that you have been very considerate, Elizabeth.”

Blue Bonnet’s lips quivered. Mrs. Clyde gave a few finishing touches to her white dress and hurried her downstairs.

And all this time, in the big front parlor, six highly-starched, immaculate young people were trying to appear interested in the decidedly perfunctory conversation Miss Clyde was endeavoring to keep up; carrying on among themselves at the same time little whispered exclamations of wonder and amusement.

Astonishment that anyone belonging to Miss Clyde could behave in such a way was only rivalled by the delightful uncertainty as to what might be to follow; and when presently Blue Bonnet, flushed, apologetic, but extremely glad to see them all, made her appearance, they received her warmly, if a little shyly.

In spite of its disastrous beginning, that tea-party was a great success,—a success due principally to Blue Bonnet herself. There was nothing stiff or formal about her; and her frank enjoyment of the society of so many girls of her own age was infectious.

Tea in Woodford was usually followed by music; and those of the girls who could play had come duly prepared. One by one, various old standbys were rendered, and then it was Blue Bonnet’s turn.

There was a laugh in the girl’s eyes as she took her place at the piano. A moment later, not a girl in the room but was beating time to the gay little tune she was playing.

Never before had such rollicking, joyous strains sounded through the sober old house. Mrs. Clyde, sitting by herself on the piazza, tapped the arm of her chair with her fan softly.

“I got that from one of the cowboys,” Blue Bonnet turned to explain; “you ought to hear him play it on his fiddle, and see the others dancing, and the camp-fire glowing.”

Six pairs of eyes were fixed on Blue Bonnet. “Oh,” Kitty cried, breathlessly, “how could you ever bear to come and leave it?—the ranch, I mean.”

Blue Bonnet’s face sobered. “Because—”

“She had to come to go to school,” Debby Slade said.

“Yes,” Blue Bonnet answered, “I had to come.”

It was Sarah who made the first move to go, making it very prettily and very properly.

Blue Bonnet promptly vetoed the suggestion; they would all go out on the piazza and sing songs and tell stories in the moonlight.

But Sarah could be adamant when it was a case of duty; and Sarah’s ideas on duty were far-reaching. She was the eldest, and she felt that it was her place to set the example.

So, although some of her flock threatened to prove rebellious, she presently led them upstairs to the best bedroom, to put on hats and gloves.

Blue Bonnet, perched insecurely on the footboard of the big mahogany bedstead, beamed upon them one and all, urging them to drop in whenever they liked without waiting to be invited.

“I will, for one,” Kitty promised; and, while the rest filed solemnly downstairs in line, Kitty pulled Blue Bonnet back, giving her a hearty hug. “Oh, but I am glad you’ve come!” she said.

Woodford etiquette required that Blue Bonnet should go with her guests to the front door—and no further. Blue Bonnet went gaily down to the gate.

On her way back to the house, she suddenly remembered her escapade of the afternoon, and what Aunt Lucinda had said. Perhaps Aunt Lucinda had forgotten by now.

One glance at Miss Clyde’s face, on re-entering the parlor, dispelled any such hope. Blue Bonnet took sudden heart of grace.

“Aunt Lucinda,” she said, going up to where her aunt stood waiting for her, “it was a very nice party, and I’m very much obliged to you, and I—I am sorry I was late, I—” “You should not have gone at all, Elizabeth,” Miss Clyde said gravely.

The reproof which followed, if a little severe, was not unjust. Blue Bonnet listened silently, but her face expressed both astonishment and indignation. Never before had she been talked to in that fashion—and after she had said she was sorry, too. Her one desire was to get away.

“Is that all, Aunt Lucinda?” she asked, the instant Miss Clyde stopped speaking.

“That is all, Elizabeth, except,” Miss Clyde’s voice softened a little, “that I very much regret having had to speak to you like this and that I hope it need not occur again. You may go now. Good night, Elizabeth.”

“Good night, Aunt Lucinda,” Blue Bonnet answered steadily; but, once on the other side of the parlor door, her breath caught in a quick sob, and later, as she buried her wet face in her pillow, she told herself miserably that she never, never could live up to Aunt Lucinda’s requirements.