Blue Bonnet’s suggestion regarding Mrs. Prior did not win favor with her mates; one or two of them agreed with Sarah that it would be “nice, but—” and after a few fierce protests she let the matter drop.

It was a glorious Autumn, with sharp, stinging nights and mornings, and warm, hazy days. Blue Bonnet spent every available moment—not to mention a good many of the other kind—out-of-doors. And every day, the girl’s thoughts were more and more of the Blue Bonnet Ranch. All unconsciously, the longing to be back on it, to be leading again the old, careless, carefree life, crept into her letters,—bringing much joy to Uncle Cliff, and making Uncle Joe shake his head delightedly.

Not that her days in Woodford were not, in the main, happy ones. She had a knack of getting a good share of all the fun there was going. And there was a good deal going, off and on.

“Elizabeth,” Kitty called after her one Friday afternoon, as they were leaving school, “Amanda and I’ve been concocting such a scheme—we’re all going nutting to-morrow afternoon up in the Parker woods—we seven and some of the boys—I guess Alec’ll go.”

Blue Bonnet’s eyes shone. “It will be fun, won’t it?”

“I’m not through yet. We’re going to make it a riding party; all of us ride except Sarah—of course you do. She says she doesn’t like it, but it’s my private opinion that she’s afraid. Anyhow, she can drive—we’ll need some place to put all the baskets.”

“Grandmother hasn’t any saddle-horses,” Blue Bonnet said. At her tone, Kitty glanced round sharply.

“Get one at the livery,” she said. “What’s the matter, Elizabeth? You look—”

“How do I look?” Blue Bonnet demanded.

“Queer. Shall we go round by the livery now, and see about your horse?”

“I don’t believe Aunt Lucinda would like me to. Kitty, I think I’ll drive with Sarah.”

“You’re mighty fond of Sarah all of a sudden!”

“Well, I got fond of you all of a sudden.”

“Come on up to Amanda’s and talk things over,” Kitty proposed, as they came to the corner of the street leading up to the Parkers’.

“I must go on home,” Blue Bonnet answered hurriedly.

“You’re getting dreadfully well-behaved all at once, Elizabeth,” Kitty protested; “luckily, it won’t last long.”

“Good-bye,” Blue Bonnet answered. And because she felt herself a coward and despised herself accordingly, she went on up the street at even a brisker pace than usual with head held very high.

Near her own gate, Alec overtook her. “You have been making a speed record,” he laughed; “what’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Go tell that to your grandmother! Come on over,” he added as Blue Bonnet halted, her hand on the gate. “It’s baking-day, and our west piazza’s a jolly place this time of the afternoon.”

“I reckon I ought to go study,” Blue Bonnet said; but she went on with Alec.

The Trent west piazza was broad and square; a big hammock hung at either end; there were low, comfortable chairs and one or two tables, littered with books and magazines.

Alec brought out a plate of Norah’s fresh cookies and a dish of apples.

Blue Bonnet leaned back in a big wicker rocker, looking out across the leaf-strewn lawn in silence. Alec watched her wonderingly; something had gone wrong.

“Miss Rankin been cutting up?” he asked.

Blue Bonnet shook her head. “At least, no more than usual. Alec, she has a perfect passion for facts.”

“And your supply is not always equal to her demand?”

“Indeed it isn’t. Still, she hasn’t been very uncomfortable to-day.”

“Going to-morrow afternoon?”

“I—don’t know.”

“You don’t know! I thought you’d be pretty keen over it?”

“I’m not.”

Alec tossed her an apple. “That’s a good one; give me your reasons—in exchange.”

“There’s only one; but it’s equally good. I’m not sure that I want to.”

Alec whistled.

“You’re going?” Blue Bonnet asked.

“I was; it’s a pretty ride—a bit rough at the last.”

Blue Bonnet turned, an expression in her eyes that Alec could not understand. He was leaning a little forward, a flush on his thin, eager face.

“I reckon you’re not afraid of—anything, Alec?” she asked.

Alec half laughed. “Yes, I am—of not being able to do all I want to. It’s a beastly bore—not being up to things.”

“Yes,” Blue Bonnet said slowly, thinking that there were worse things than that even. “Here comes General Trent,” she added. Blue Bonnet liked the General, liked the old-fashioned courtesy of his manner towards her.

“How are you to-day, Miss Elizabeth?” he asked now, taking the chair Alec offered.

“Oh, I’m always well,” she answered, and regretted her words the moment she had said them.

“And you are getting too fond of Woodford ever to leave it?”

“I’d like to go as far as Boston, now and then, General.”

“Oh, Boston belongs to Woodford.”

“She’ll be going back to Texas one of these days,” Alec said.

The General turned to him. “Brown tells me that Victor hasn’t been out for a day or so, Alec; I thought you rode every day.”

“I mean to, Grandfather.”

The General studied the boy a little anxiously; he had never been able to understand how a grandson of his could be so delicate. Then he turned to Blue Bonnet again. “You must miss your rides, Miss Elizabeth? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen you riding since you came. Can’t you find a horse to suit you here in Woodford?”

“I haven’t tried, General.”

Alec, watching her, saw the girl’s quick color rise. It set him to thinking; to remembering, as his grandfather had, that he had never seen Blue Bonnet riding. Of course she did ride—a Texas girl!

“That little mare of Darrel’s,” the General was saying, “she ought to suit you, Miss Elizabeth. Shall I speak to Darrel about her for you? She’d make a fine match for Victor—that would get you out oftener, Alec. Mustn’t get lazy, my boy.”

Blue Bonnet rose hastily. “I must go now. Thank you very much, General—only, please don’t bother.”

“No bother at all—merely a pleasure, Miss Elizabeth,” the General assured her.

“You’re in a tremendous hurry all at once,” Alec said, as he crossed the lawn with her.

Blue Bonnet did not answer. At the top of the stile, she suddenly faced down upon him with flaming cheeks. “Alec, he mustn’t do it—don’t let him!”

“Let who—do what?”

“Your grandfather—I don’t want the horse! I won’t ride her.”

Alec stared up at her. “Why not?”

“Because—I’m afraid!”

“Afraid! you afraid?”

“Yes,” she said. “And that’s the reason I don’t want to go to-morrow. I won’t ride.”

“But why—”

“I told you!” “I mean—Elizabeth, I can’t understand. You have ridden?”

All the color left the girl’s face, her eyes grew wide with some remembered horror. “Yes, I’ve ridden,” she said; “and I’ve seen—others ride.” Suddenly she sat down, her hands over her face; but she was not crying, as Alec at first supposed, only drawing deep shuddering breaths.

“Elizabeth,” he begged, “what is the matter?”

She looked up. “Nothing. You—you’ll tell the General—what I asked you?”

“Yes.”

“I reckon you think I’m a coward. Maybe, you won’t want to be friends any more?”

“Nonsense!”

“And—you won’t tell anyone?”

“You know I won’t.”

Blue Bonnet brushed back her hair. “I’ll have to go in now. Oh, dear! I forgot Aunt Lucinda always likes me to report after school. Aunt Lucinda has such a lot of notions.”

“Are you just home from school, Elizabeth?” Miss Clyde asked, when Blue Bonnet appeared indoors.

“No, indeed, Aunt Lucinda, I’ve been over at Alec’s.”

Miss Clyde sighed; it was a very expressive sigh; it seemed to Blue Bonnet that it followed her all the way upstairs. “As if I hadn’t troubles enough of my own without being sighed over,” the girl protested.

Blue Bonnet was dusting the parlor the next morning, when Alec came over. He was whistling “All the Blue Bonnets,” and in response she went to one of the open windows.

“Do come in,” she cried; “I’m nearly through.”

“Can’t you come out?”

“I’m afraid not—to stay.” By way of compromise, she sat down on the window sill, while Alec perched opposite on the piazza railing.

“Alec,” Blue Bonnet said emphatically, “I want you to bear me witness that I hate dusting.”

Alec laughed.

“I think the person who invented claw-foot furniture and all those detestable, twisted posts, and so on—ought to be publicly anathematized,” Blue Bonnet declared. “I like nice, plain, light-colored furniture—that don’t show the dust.”

“A pretty house you’d have!”

“I shouldn’t stay in it any more than I could help, anyway.”

“See here, Elizabeth, I haven’t time to discuss social economics—”

“What are they?”

“I’m going to drive you and Sarah in the dogcart this afternoon—that horse of the Blakes isn’t precisely a Maud S.—and it would be too bad if you two only got there in time to come home with the crowd.”

“I’m not sure I’m going.”

“I am. A picnic without you wouldn’t be a picnic. With you, it’s pretty likely to be all sorts of a one.”

“Alec, I wish you wouldn’t.” Blue Bonnet’s face was very serious.

“You can’t always have your own way, Miss Ashe.”

“Your grandfather expects you to ride.”

“I’ll go for a turn this morning. Any more objections up your sleeve? It’s a good bit of a pull up there, anyhow.”

“As if that was your real reason!” Blue Bonnet smiled across at him very gratefully.

Alec swung himself down from the railing to the ground. “Half-past two, then; by the way, you’re all to come back to our house to supper.”

There was nothing sober about Blue Bonnet’s smile this time. She went back to her dusting with fairly good grace, doing it so much more carefully than usual that when Miss Lucinda made her customary tour of inspection, there was not a great deal to be gone over.

“Sometimes, Elizabeth,” her aunt said, “I have hopes of making a housewife of you, in the end.”

“I wish you hadn’t, Aunt Lucinda,” Blue Bonnet answered soberly; “then perhaps you’d give up trying.”

“Elizabeth!” Miss Clyde said reprovingly.

“I mean it, Aunt Lucinda—truly.”

“You may go to your mending now, Elizabeth.”

Mrs. Clyde had charge of the weekly mending hour; which, in some measure reconciled Blue Bonnet to it.

“Grandmother,” she asked, bringing her work-basket into Mrs. Clyde’s room, “did Mamma like to sew?”

“I am afraid not, dear. She had, as you have, her father’s love of outdoor life.”

Blue Bonnet slipped her darning-egg into the toe of a stocking. “I wish I had known Grandfather. I suppose,” she added, “that Mamma had to learn?”

“Yes, dear; every gentlewoman should know how to use her needle.”

“Was it here she used to learn—in this room?”

“Yes, Elizabeth—sitting in that very chair.”

Blue Bonnet passed a hand gently over the worn arm of the little old-fashioned sewing-chair. The talk between grandmother and granddaughter, during sewing hour, was generally of Blue Bonnet’s mother. Gradually the girl felt herself drawing nearer the mother she remembered rather dimly, coming to know her through the life she had led as a girl in this quiet old house. “Grandmother,” the girl looked up suddenly, “am I really like Mamma? Benita says so—but am I really?”

“Very, Elizabeth.”

“I am glad—I should like to be like Mamma—‘the little SeÑora,’ they call her at home yet. Grandmother, I wish you could see the ranch!”

“I have seen it, many a time—through your mother’s eyes.”

“You mean, in her letters? Could she make you do that?”

“You shall see for yourself some day, dear.”

“When, Grandmother?”

“Some day.”

Blue Bonnet threaded her needle a little impatiently. “If you were Uncle Cliff, Grandmother,—I’d have those letters right straight off.”

Mrs. Clyde smiled. “And if Uncle Cliff had been like me—?”

“I reckon I haven’t made Uncle Cliff see much in my letters—they’ve been rather—scrappy. I so hate to write letters.”

“Isn’t that a little hard on Uncle Cliff, Elizabeth? Think how he must look for those letters!”

“I reckon I’ll have to make them longer.” Blue Bonnet held up her stocking for inspection.

“Very well done, Elizabeth. I shall make a needlewoman of you yet.”

Blue Bonnet looked dubious. “By the time you’ve made ‘a needlewoman’ of me, Grandmother, and Aunt Lucinda’s made ‘a housewife’ of me, I’m afraid there won’t be any of the real me left.”

“No fear of that,” Mrs. Clyde answered. “You know, the owner of the Blue Bonnet Ranch must be an all-round person.”

And somehow, Blue Bonnet quite forgot to mention that she intended to sell as soon as she came of age.

Blue Bonnet was ready and waiting, when Alec came for her that afternoon. “Grandmother let me have my dinner earlier,” she told Alec; “Grandmother is such an accommodating person.” She looked very trig and jaunty in her brown skirt and reefer; her crimson tam-o’-shanter and hair-bow giving her a touch of color.

“I’ll get in back, so as to sit with Sarah,” she said. “We’ll put the baskets in front with you, Alec.”

Grandmother came out to see them off. “Mind you take good care of Elizabeth, Alec,” she warned.

“I will, Mrs. Clyde,” he answered. And then they were off down the drive and out into the broad village street, drawing up in fine style before the parsonage.

It was a gay little company that presently set off; fourteen in all. “But,” Kitty rode up close to the cart, “why aren’t you riding, Elizabeth?”

Alec turned quickly. “I invited her to drive.”

“When?”

“That you’ll have to guess at; it was before starting, at any rate.”

“And after I had asked her to ride, I know that,” Kitty insisted.

“‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,’” Alec quoted.

“It was after, Kitty,” Blue Bonnet said.

“Then why—” Kitty began.

“You remember your old nickname, Kitty?” Alec broke in—“‘Little Miss Why’?”

“You’re a very puzzling sort of girl, Elizabeth Ashe,” Kitty said. “I know you’ve got some sort of a reason in the back of your mind.”

“Well, if I have, I’m going to keep it there,” Blue Bonnet answered. Her cheeks were hot. For the next quarter of a mile, she sat very still, looking back along the road they had come. The riders had gone on ahead.

“Elizabeth,” Sarah said gravely, “it was awfully good of you—it wouldn’t have been very pleasant driving all alone—and I don’t enjoy riding. You see, I understand—if Kitty doesn’t.”

Blue Bonnet moved restlessly. “No, you don’t! It isn’t that, one bit.”

At that moment, Alec carefully steered the cart over a particularly businesslike thank-you-marm, and Blue Bonnet’s words ended in a little shriek of laughter.

And after all, they got to the nutting place first,—Kitty’s horse, Black Pete, possessing more years than certainty of temper, having taken it into his head to vary the monotony of the ride by long and frequent rests by the roadside.

It was a merry afternoon, and a profitable one as well; for the baskets went home well laden. Going back the party kept together, arriving at Alec’s house in the early twilight, tired, happy, and, above all else, hungry.

“Grandmother,” Blue Bonnet said that evening, “did you ever want to do something for somebody very, very much?”

“Frequently.”

“I wish I could do something for Alec.”

“Why, dear?”

“Oh, because—”

“I am not sure that you are not doing something for him, Elizabeth. General Trent was saying only this afternoon how much brighter and happier he had seemed lately.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that! I mean something very particular.”

“You can do something for me, Elizabeth,” Miss Clyde said. “I met Miss Rankin this afternoon; and she gave me a most discouraging report of your school work.”

“I don’t think I altogether like Miss Rankin,” Blue Bonnet observed.

“That is hardly to the point, Elizabeth.”

“But you can do better when you like a person, Aunt Lucinda.”

“Suppose you try the doing better first, and see if the liking does not follow?”

“I do try,” Blue Bonnet said, “Miss Rankin is so very tiresome—I hate details, and doing everything by rule.”

“My dear, you do not need to tell me how much you dislike all method,” Miss Clyde answered.

The next evening, when sitting alone with her grandmother in the twilight, Blue Bonnet, of her own will, took up the subject again. “I am falling behind, Grandmother,” she said; “I’ve had a lot of failures lately. I do study every night, too; but I seem always to get all the stupid questions that aren’t interesting enough for the answers to stick in one’s mind.”

“There is only one remedy, Elizabeth. You do not want all these Eastern girls to get ahead of you?”

“I don’t believe I care, Grandmother. What does it matter?”

“It matters this, Elizabeth; that this is the thing you are to do now; and to do it to the best of your ability.”

“Perhaps I am, Grandmother.”

“You do not think that, Elizabeth.”

Blue Bonnet changed the subject. “And, please, when may I have Mamma’s letters?”

“I think I shall say—when you have earned them, Elizabeth.”

The next morning, Blue Bonnet started in with the determination to earn those letters before the week was out. Before the week was out, she had slipped back into her old, careless ways.

The most delightful of companions out of school, in school her example was hardly of the best. She took her failures as lightly as her successes; and seemed more and more disposed to view Miss Rankin’s rules and regulations with good-natured impatience, rather than with respect.

Miss Rankin often wondered if anything would rouse the girl’s dormant sense of personal responsibility; and, wondering, was more than once tempted to put the question to the test; and then a sudden glance from Blue Bonnet’s blue eyes would plead all unconsciously for another trial.

Still, Miss Rankin knew that, sooner or later, matters were bound to come to a climax.

Others knew it too; chief among them Sarah. “Elizabeth,” she said one afternoon, “don’t you think it would be nice if we could study together?” Blue Bonnet was in a perverse mood. “Why?” she asked.

“You know examinations will be coming after a while.”

“Will they—from where?”

“Elizabeth!”

They were in the cloak-room, and Blue Bonnet turned in unwonted fierceness. “Sarah Blake, if you dare ‘Elizabeth!’ me in that way again, I’ll—shake you!”

Sarah looked hurt, instead of angry, which only aggravated Blue Bonnet the more.

“I thought—” Sarah began.

“I don’t want to be missionaryized by anybody!”

Sarah drew on her gloves in a silence so expressive as to be almost audible.

“‘Birds in their little nests agree,’” Kitty sang from the doorway.

“Maybe they do,” Blue Bonnet retorted, “but Sarah and I don’t—just now.”

“Come on,” Kitty said.

At the gate, Blue Bonnet turned to Sarah. “I—I’ll be down this evening, if I can.”

“I’ll come too,” Kitty said.

“We’re going to study,” Sarah warned her.

“It’s a class in first aid to the injured,” Blue Bonnet laughed.

“See here, Elizabeth Ashe,” Kitty exclaimed, “you’ve been sailing pretty near to the wind lately. I never knew before that Miss Rankin was such a straight descendant of Job’s.”

A week later, in spite of Sarah’s efforts and Kitty’s warnings, the climax came.

It was a dull, bleak day, the last day of October, with a brisk wind sending the falling leaves scurrying in all directions. Blue Bonnet had had a letter from her uncle that morning; a long letter, that had brought the life on the ranch very near. More than ever “the call of the wild” was in her blood that day. She was late for school in the morning; late again, in the afternoon; and the very slight attention she brought to bear upon her work during the earlier part of the day had, by afternoon, diminished almost to the vanishing point.

Her place was by the window, and to the girl, the school-yard walk, with its bordering of tall, bare trees, led not out to the village street, but on and out to the wide, illimitable prairie; and across the prairie to a long, low house, standing like a little island in a wide sea of grass. She could see Benita coming and going from house to kitchen, and Don stretched lazily out on the back veranda.

“Elizabeth!”

Blue Bonnet turned, lifting a pair of dreamy, far-away eyes.

“Are you aware that this is the third time I have spoken to you?” Miss Rankin asked. “No, Miss Rankin—I beg your pardon.”

“You may take up the subject where Ruth left off.”

Blue Bonnet glanced uncertainly from Ruth to the open history in Miss Rankin’s hands, and back again.

Ruth’s lips moved ever so slightly; but the movement gave not the faintest clue. Blue Bonnet turned to Miss Rankin. “I am afraid I haven’t any idea where Ruth left off.” There was no real regret in her tone, merely polite apology.

Miss Rankin turned to one of the other girls. “You may answer, Hester.”

And Hester Manly did answer, with a promptness and fullness which should have served as a rebuke to Blue Bonnet. But already the girl’s eyes had gone back to the window. To her, the troubles and trials of George the Second seemed of very little consequence, in comparison with the homesick longings of the owner of the Blue Bonnet Ranch. She was glad that history was the last recitation of the day.

Just before closing time Blue Bonnet, feeling vaguely that something was wrong again, looked up. “Did you speak to me, Miss Rankin?” she asked; and wondered at the sudden ripple of amusement that ran through the room.

Miss Rankin’s lips were drawn until only the faintest line of red showed. “Yes,” she said, “I was speaking to you, Elizabeth. You will remain this afternoon to make up your history and English—your Latin you may make up to-morrow afternoon.”

Blue Bonnet raised her eyes in swift protest. It would mean hours! And she had been counting the minutes until she should be free!

But there was no relenting in Miss Rankin’s face. Blue Bonnet watched the rest gathering up books and papers, and making ready to depart, with heart growing more rebellious every moment.

Sarah’s look of pity, Kitty’s shrug of impatience, all the little glances of sympathy, protest, or amusement, only helped to fan still hotter the flame of rebellion in her heart.

It happened that she was the only pupil detained that afternoon; and, as presently the long line of boys and girls filed out to the march Miss Rankin was playing outside in the assembly-room, Blue Bonnet, gathering up her own books, walked deliberately out of the side entrance.

Straight for the big meadow back of her grandmother’s house she made—the meadow that was a very little akin to the prairie. One line to Uncle Cliff, and her way back was open; but stronger still than her homesick longings was the pride that would not let her write that line.

She was sitting on the ground, a little huddled up heap of misery, resisting even Solomon’s attempts at comfort and diversion, when Alec came across the meadow.

He stopped short. “How long have you been here? Kitty said you had to stay in.”

“I didn’t stay.”

“Did the Rankin relent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Elizabeth, what have you been doing?”

“I couldn’t stay—not to-day, Alec, I just couldn’t!”

Alec whistled. “I’m mighty afraid there’ll be something doing to-morrow, Elizabeth.”

Blue Bonnet rose. “Of course, I intend to explain to Miss Rankin. Come, Solomon, we must go in.”

At the meadow gate, she halted. “Coming in, Alec?”

“Can’t,” he answered; “I’ve a compo on hand.”

Blue Bonnet studied hard that evening. She meant to have good lessons on the morrow; she would go to Miss Rankin the first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, she was a little late the next morning; her explanation would have to wait. And then, the moment the opening exercises were over, and the class-room doors closed, Miss Rankin turned to her.

“Elizabeth,” she asked, “didn’t you understand yesterday afternoon that you were to remain after school?”

A shiver of something like apprehension ran through Blue Bonnet. “Please, Miss Rankin—” she began.

“Did you, or did you not, understand, Elizabeth?”

Blue Bonnet hated the hushed stillness of the room. “Yes, Miss Rankin,” she said, “I understood—but—”

“You may take your explanation to Mr. Hunt, Elizabeth.”