“I’m mighty glad it wasn’t something belonging to Mr. Blake,” Blue Bonnet rejoiced, hurrying bare-headed down the street to the parsonage; “I would have hated having to explain to him!”

She understood now why Mrs. Blake had looked so flushed and disappointed the evening before; probably, she had set her heart on having her new waist to wear.

“Oh, dear!” Blue Bonnet sighed; and she was so tragic in her request to see Mrs. Blake at once that Lydia, who opened the door, thought something dreadful must have happened at the Clyde place, and led the way directly to the kitchen, where her mother was kneading bread.

“You can’t imagine what I’ve come to tell you!” Blue Bonnet laid the brown-paper parcel on the table beside the big bread-pan. “Nor how sorry I am!”

“Bring Blue Bonnet a chair, Lydia,” Mrs. Blake said, looking at the parcel in surprise. “You will excuse me if I go on with what I am doing, my dear?” “I’m afraid it is you who will not want to forgive me!” Blue Bonnet plunged into the full tide of confession, explanation, and apology; with the result that presently her listener—who had really been greatly disappointed at the non-appearance of the waist at the promised time,—new waists were rare events at the parsonage,—found herself called upon to play the part of comforter; Blue Bonnet’s distress of mind was so evident.

“But it does matter!” Blue Bonnet insisted. “It matters very much! I can’t think how I—” she broke off abruptly; through the one door, leading to the dining-room, she caught sight of Debby. Debby’s head was down on the table, her shoulders shaking convulsively.

As Blue Bonnet stopped speaking, she looked up. “I couldn’t help hearing; and—and it was so like you, Blue Bonnet Ashe! Oh, dear, I can’t help it!” Debby’s head went down again.

“D—don’t!” Blue Bonnet implored; it would be adding insult to injury for her to laugh, but if Debby didn’t stop—

“Suppose you go in the other room with Debby,” Mrs. Blake suggested; she knew all about the events of the past week; she was glad Debby had happened to be there.

And the next moment, Blue Bonnet and Debby found themselves sitting side by side on the shabby old sofa. “Will you look at this!” Debby held up the rag doll she was stuffing for Trotty Blake. “I’ve done my best with the old thing, and she keeps getting lumpier and lumpier!”

It was Blue Bonnet who went off into a gale of laughter this time. “She looks like our Lisa, at home! And Lisa looks like a pillow with a string tied—not too tightly—about the middle.”

When Sarah came down she found the two chatting away as pleasantly as ever.

“Have you any bright pieces?” Blue Bonnet asked. “We’re going to dress Trotty a Mexican doll.”

“I’ll ask mother if we may have the piece-bag,” Lydia offered.

Before Blue Bonnet realized it, it was dinner time and Julia had begun to lay the table; she jumped up in dismay. “I only meant to stay a few moments! What will Aunt Lucinda say? I was right in the middle of practising.”

Visions of an undusted parlor, of Grandmother waiting patiently for her and her mending-basket, rose before her.

“It had to be in the middle of something, hadn’t it?” Debby laughed.

“But you are both to stay to dinner with us,” Mrs. Blake said, coming in; “I’m sending word by Lydia now.”

“Oh, I would love to do that!” Blue Bonnet exclaimed; it would be fun making part of a family, if only for a day.

“I wish I had five little sisters!” she told Sarah, sitting on the bed in the latter’s room. “It must be lovely, having someone to share your room with you.”

Sarah, conscious of certain unexpressed longings for a room all to herself,—Julia was so untidy,—only smiled by way of answer.

“How about the club this afternoon?” Debby asked, from the washstand. “Are we meeting here, or at Blue Bonnet’s?”

Blue Bonnet turned suddenly to look out of the window, while Sarah answered, hurriedly. “Let’s make it a walking meeting, it’s too nice to stay indoors. Father’s going out by the Doyles’ after dinner; I’ll ask him to tell Ruth and Susy to meet us at the cross-roads.”

“Kitty can’t go, she’s off with the doctor for the day,” Debby said; “it’s Amanda’s treat. I’ll run around there after dinner and remind her. Sarah, I never knew that the view from your back window was so absorbing.”

“Didn’t you?” Blue Bonnet asked. “I think back yards are more interesting than front ones. Sarah, I wish I had remembered to ask Lydia to bring my hat back with her.” There was a happy ring in Blue Bonnet’s voice; the “We are Seven’s” were to have their meeting; and perhaps if Kitty hadn’t gone with her father, she would have gone with them. Her week was not turning out so badly, after all.

She thoroughly enjoyed that far from quiet family dinner; helping Sarah with the dishes afterwards was fun too, so was helping clean up the younger children for the afternoon.

Then Debby called to them from downstairs that she and Amanda were tired of waiting, and presently the four were off through the garden and out the back way.

If Blue Bonnet had forgotten about her hat, Miss Lucinda had not; Lydia had reappeared with the hat and Solomon,—the latter self-invited. Solomon was dancing on ahead now, the happiest small dog in the township.

At the cross-roads, they found Ruth and Susy waiting. “We’ve been here the longest time!” Susy told them. And in the pleasure felt by all six at being together again, and out in the open, the troubles and misunderstandings of the past few days were ignored by common consent. Even Amanda found courage to come down from her fence, on the right side; and when she explained that the box she carried contained fresh fudge made that morning, thereby admitting that she had expected the club to meet as usual, it was felt that she had made the amende honorable; and not only that, but excellent fudge as well. They had a long, rambling tramp, coming back a bit muddy and a good deal tired, to the cross-roads, where Ruth and Susy were to leave them. Just then Dr. Clark drove by, Kitty in the gig beside him.

“Good afternoon,” he called out, barely drawing rein. “Are you a party of walking delegates?” But Kitty, with one brief, comprehensive glance at the group in the road, sat looking straight before her.

“Well!” Debby remarked, as the doctor drove on.

Amanda looked uncomfortable; there were times when living next door to Kitty had its disadvantages, and this was going to be one of them.

“It is to be hoped,” Debby went on, “that our young friend climbs down from her high horse before Monday morning.”

“We really must be going on,” Sarah said.

The rest of the walk was a silent one. Sarah and Blue Bonnet were the last to separate; as they stopped at the Clyde gate, Sarah said, a little hesitatingly, “I’m sorry—it happened, Blue Bonnet; but Kitty doesn’t mean all she does—or says; I daresay she’s sorry too, by now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Blue Bonnet answered, turning to go in; then she came back. “That wasn’t true, it does matter! And—and you’ve been awfully good to me all this week, Sarah; I’ll never, never forget it!” Leaning over the gate, she gave Sarah a hasty good night kiss, and ran off up the walk.

Mrs. Clyde and Miss Lucinda were out making calls, Delia told her. “I hope,” she added, a laugh in her kind, Irish-gray eyes, “that you’ll be finding the parlor dusted to your liking, miss.”

Blue Bonnet laughed. “If Aunt Lucinda was suited, I am. Thank you so much, Delia.”

She was waiting on the veranda when the carriage drew up before the steps a few moments later. “I’m glad you’re not going to make a formal call here,” she told Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda; “and for once, I got home first.”

“You left first,” Miss Lucinda answered.

Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced. “But you see, I just had to get Mrs. Blake’s waist home; it was considerably overdue as it was.”

Grandmother sat down on one of the veranda benches. “What I don’t understand is how it came to be in your possession.”

Blue Bonnet came to sit at the other end of the bench. “I begin to think I was born to trouble; and my intentions—in this case, at least—were so good. Netty Morrow would have had ever so long a walk, and there was Peter and the phaeton. I got the other two home all right; I can’t understand how I came to miss that one. Mrs. Blake was awfully nice about it. I think she was simply born to be a minister’s wife, she makes such a beautiful one.”

“But Blue Bonnet,” Miss Lucinda was looking grave, “try and put yourself in Mrs. Blake’s place; how would you have liked being disappointed?”

“If I were Mrs. Blake, I suppose I wouldn’t have liked it, Aunt Lucinda. Though I don’t see but what she looked very nice; and she’s got the new one all fresh for the next being asked out to tea. We might ask her again right soon, and then she could wear it here.”

Miss Lucinda sighed.

“And anyhow, if it hadn’t happened that way, I shouldn’t have gone to Sarah’s like I did, and met Debby, and had such a nice day, every moment of it until—And Delia did my dusting, and I’ll finish practising and do my mending this evening.”

“Don’t you want to stop and take breath, dear?” Grandmother asked. “We are very glad you have had a pleasant day; though another time, it might be just as well not to leave in quite such a hurry. As for the evening, Alec expects you over there. There is the hint of dancing, in a very small and very early affair, Alec assured me.”

“How lovely!” Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced more than ever.

“And there is a letter for you on the sitting-room mantel,” Aunt Lucinda told her. The letter was from Cousin Honoria Winthrop. They had hoped to have the pleasure of a short visit from their little Texas relative long before this, but various matters had combined to prevent their being able to invite her; however, they trusted that she would be able to come to them from Friday until Monday, of the following week.

“Will it be jolly, Solomon, or won’t it?” Blue Bonnet asked, slipping the letter back into its envelope. “Two whole days and two parts of days with the Boston relatives; it sounds a bit scaresome.”

Blue Bonnet and Grandmother were walking slowly up and down the veranda; Sunday was nearly over, Blue Bonnet was thinking, and the something which she had been hoping all day would happen had not happened. It had not seemed possible that Kitty would let this first day of a new week go by without making some effort towards a reconciliation. And she would have been so willing to meet her halfway, to forgive those unkind speeches and all the slights since, including that of yesterday afternoon—if only Kitty had asked her to.

Mr. Blake had preached on charity that morning; he had not been nearly so dull and prosy as usual; and Kitty had been there. How could Kitty feel it her Christian duty not to want to be friends? If only all the “We are Seven’s” could start afresh to-morrow morning, letting bygones be bygones.

Blue Bonnet looked wistfully off across the broad lawn, in all its Spring greenness, to the quiet street, lying bright and deserted in the afternoon sunlight. Woodford always seemed a little different on Sundays from other days; there seemed a sort of hush over everything. Just a moment before, Grandmother had quoted George Herbert’s line—

“Charity suffereth long, and is kind.” Blue Bonnet wished the words would not keep running through her thoughts. She felt that she had suffered long, very long; and she certainly was willing to be “kind.”

“... seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked.” Perhaps she had been fairly easy to provoke, “... endureth all things.” Enduring things wasn’t her strong point, that was certain.

“Grandmother,” Blue Bonnet said, much as she had said it that August evening on this same veranda, “it is very uncomfortable—not being friends with people.”

“Then why not try to put an end to the discomfort, dear?”

“But—”

“After all, there is something to be said on Kitty’s side, you know. Suppose someone whom you liked and trusted quite unexpectedly did something directly contrary to what you considered fair and loyal, wouldn’t you think you had a right to know the reason why?”

“But I would have told her, only she said—”

“I can easily imagine what she said, just as I can easily imagine how often since then she has wished that she had not said it.”

“Then why hasn’t she come and told me so?”

“I can imagine the answer to that too. But because Kitty is willing to let a little false pride stand in the way of friendship, is no reason that you do the same.”

Two or three more turns Blue Bonnet took, then she came to a sudden halt. “I reckon I should have told her why I couldn’t go with the class! I—I’ll go do it—right now.”

“Not at too quick a pace on Sunday afternoon, dear,” Grandmother warned, and Blue Bonnet tried to moderate her steps accordingly.

Then, just as she was turning Kitty’s corner, she came plump upon Kitty herself.

“I was coming to—” Blue Bonnet began, hastily.

“So was I—” Kitty cut in.

“To tell you why I didn’t—”

“To tell you that I know now why you didn’t—”

Then they both stopped to laugh, after which they started back up the street together, arm in arm, in the old way.

“I only hope that Mr. Hunt doesn’t make us promise!” Kitty said. “Blue Bonnet, when I think of the hateful things I said—”

“Please, let’s not think about them! You wouldn’t’ve, only—”

But Kitty was not to be shut off in that fashion. “The ‘rankin’ officer’ told Alec—she’s known all about Mr. Hunt’s putting you on your honor that time, and she’s been keeping her weather-eye open lately; Alec came and told me. Oh, it has been the longest, dreariest week! Yesterday, I made papa take me with him, on purpose to avoid the club meeting; and then, coming home, he—Were you ever lectured in a gig, Blue Bonnet?”

“No,” Blue Bonnet laughed.

“Nor out of one, I imagine. Then we met you girls, and you looked as if you had been having such a good time, and that made me crosser than ever.”

Blue Bonnet came home, the last shadow lifted; it was all right again with the “We are Seven’s,” and to-morrow those empty places in the schoolroom would be filled once more. And Alec knew now; she couldn’t help being glad of that.

She found him on the veranda with Grandmother. “Shake!” he said, holding out his hand. He smiled over at Mrs. Clyde. “She’s a very foolish girl, isn’t she?” he said; “and a mighty plucky one.”

“She looks to me like a very happy one,” Mrs. Clyde answered.

Blue Bonnet started for school at the usual time the next morning. Near the building she met Billy Slade. “See here,” he said, “why on earth didn’t you let on, and not let folks go thinking all sorts of nonsense?”

“They didn’t have to think nonsense, did they? Where’s Debby?”

“Gone on to the reception; she went early, so as to get a back seat.”

“Will it be very—?” Blue Bonnet asked, sympathetically.

“I can tell you better about that later on.” Billy turned towards the front entrance, leading up to Mr. Hunt’s office.

In the office, he found the rest of the fourteen waiting, and chiefly occupied with the question—Would Mr. Hunt keep them until after opening exercises, or would he allow them to join their class before school began?

“It’s worse than waiting at the dentist’s,” Ruth sighed.

“He’s coming now!” one of the boys called, softly, from his place near the door, and Mr. Hunt came in.

Fourteen pairs of eyes were lifted to his, more or less anxiously. But he was not very hard on them this morning. A few grave words of advice they had to listen to; to promise, each in turn, that there should be no more cutting of classes on their part. Then Mr. Hunt said that in regard to the Sargent, he was still undecided; it would depend largely upon the promptitude with which they made up the lessons for the past week.

“That means we can try, doesn’t it?” Hester said, as they were on their way to their classroom. “I’m glad I’ve kept up.”

“The old boy’s a trump!” one of the boys said. “I thought we were out of that for good.”

“Make up all those lessons!” Blue Bonnet sympathized, as Kitty told her what Mr. Hunt had said.

“It lets the ‘jolly good’ in for a lot, doesn’t it?” Kitty commented. “I’m glad it isn’t the ‘rankin’ officer’! Making lessons up with her wasn’t always a summer-day’s picnic!”

“I think Miss Rankin was ever so nice—generally.”

“She was—to you!” Kitty slipped into her seat. “My, it’s good to be back!”

Before the end of the day was reached, the gates of Coventry had closed behind Blue Bonnet.

“One wouldn’t exactly suppose you hated school now!” Alec remarked, overtaking her on the way home. “It had begun to look as though you would never get rid of your body-guard.” “I don’t hate it—now.” It occurred to Blue Bonnet that Alec was looking—not precisely tired, but as if things were a bit twisted. “How are you getting on with your paper?” she asked.

“I have all my notes ready. It ought not to take very long to write it.”

“Is Boyd trying?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.”

“I’m going to Boston on Friday, to stay until Monday morning; it’ll be the first time I’ve been away over night since I came to Woodford.”

“To stay with the Boston relatives?”

Blue Bonnet nodded. “I wonder will they be very—Bostony.”

“They won’t be anything else; but they might be worse. Suppose we have a walk in honor of the great event? Just by our twosomes.”

“You wouldn’t rather ride?”

“Boyd’s bespoken Victor.”

And it occurred to Blue Bonnet that Boyd was getting more good out of Victor these Spring afternoons than Alec was. “He rides Victor too hard,” she said; “I’d just like to get Uncle Joe Terry after him—he would tell him a few things.”

“He rides a good many things too hard,” Alec said. “Will you be long?”

“Only long enough to leave my books and report to the commanding officer,” Blue Bonnet answered. “And what will the club do without you on Saturday?” Alec asked, as they set out.

“Just that—I reckon.”

There was considerable protest among the six, when it was known that their president intended leaving them for so long; they flatly refused to hold a meeting without her. “It wouldn’t be any fun!” Debby declared.

They were down at the station in a body to see her off; very much as if she were going on a real journey. “Which is what she will be doing before long,” Susy said, watching the train draw out; “so we’d better make the most of her while she’s here.”

“Like last week?” Sarah asked, with such unusual spirit that the others stared at her in astonishment.

“Good for you, Sallykins!” Kitty commented. “You’re coming on!”

Blue Bonnet, seated beside Aunt Lucinda, and rejoicing as she always did in the swift sense of motion, was thinking herself that girls were queer; last week, they would hardly speak to her; this week, they couldn’t be friendly enough.

“I’ll have to take an early train Monday morning, won’t I?” she said, turning to her aunt.

“The 7.45 from town.”

“I hope I don’t oversleep!”

“Your Cousin Honoria will not let you lose your train, my dear.” “I wish you were going to stay too,” Blue Bonnet said. After all, the Boston cousins were little more than strangers to her, and very elderly.

“You are not afraid of being homesick?” But Miss Lucinda looked pleased.

“I believe I am.” And when, later, the cab drew up before the rather somber-looking old house on Beacon Street, Blue Bonnet was quite sure of it.

But in spite of those first misgivings, Blue Bonnet thoroughly enjoyed her visit to her elderly relatives; they were so anxious that she should be happy while she was with them that that in itself went far towards counteracting that first sense of strangeness.

“And what should you like to do this morning, SeÑorita?” Cousin Tracy asked, at breakfast on Saturday morning; the evening before had been devoted to what Cousin Honoria called “getting acquainted.”

“I should love,”—Blue Bonnet looked from one to another of the three with that quick smile of hers, which seemed taking for granted perfect agreement with her wishes,—“I should just love to go all about Boston in one of those big sight-seeing motors.”

There was a moment’s silence; it seemed to Miss Augusta that the very portraits on the wall looked horrified. “Uncle Cliff meant to take me when he was on last winter,” Blue Bonnet explained in blissful unconsciousness, “but we didn’t get ’round to it.”

Miss Honoria and Miss Augusta looked at their brother; as the man of the family, it was his place to deal with such an unlooked-for emergency.

“We will go, by all means,” Cousin Tracy answered; he abhorred motor cars, and now he was called upon to spend his morning riding about Boston in a public one! Young people nowadays had the most extraordinary ideas.

“Perhaps your aunts would like to join us,” he suggested.

But the sisters, it appeared, had various duties on hand, which would prevent their going pleasuring that morning.

Strangely enough, Mr. Winthrop really enjoyed his morning. Blue Bonnet’s interest in everything was refreshing, her point of view, her own. On the whole, she was pleased to approve of his city, as a city.

“I’ve learned a lot of history,” she announced at the luncheon table. “It was ever so interesting really seeing Bunker Hill! But what queer little narrow streets you have in ever so many places! I suppose, when they first laid Boston out, they didn’t realize how much was going to happen here. Cousin Tracy’s going to take me to the Library this afternoon; I’ve been there before, but I reckon one could go there every time one came to Boston. Take it all around, Boston is considerable of a town, isn’t it?”

“Boston considerable of a—” Miss Augusta repeated, helplessly. She glanced at her brother, but Mr. Winthrop did not look in the least dismayed; on the contrary, he appeared to be enjoying himself exceedingly.

The afternoon was given to the Library, with, later, a walk on the Common. In the evening, Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta took their young guest to a concert. Blue Bonnet went to bed feeling that she had been quite dissipated.

The next day was a truly April day; showery enough by afternoon to keep people indoors,—anyone, that is, who happened to be visiting the Boston relatives,—but with sweet, damp odors coming from the Common in to Blue Bonnet through her open window, as she sat writing to Uncle Cliff, and thinking a little longingly of the broad veranda at Woodford, the big, pleasant garden, fast putting on its Spring dress. How could people be content to live their lives out in cities?

Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta were taking the daily nap that only a family crisis had power to prevent; Cousin Tracy was in the library when Blue Bonnet came down.

“I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind showing me your collections?” she asked. “And don’t you think we might get a walk later? I think being out in the rain is fun.”

“I wonder if I did at sixteen?” Cousin Tracy answered, laying down his book, and going to open the doors of the tall cabinets where he kept his collections of rare coins and medals.

The medals interested Blue Bonnet more than the coins; they had been won by someone; each in itself represented some deed of daring, some act of courage. “Every one has its own story, hasn’t it?” she said.

“Yes,” Mr. Winthrop replied, “with the same theme as a foundation.”

“I wish you could tell me some of them.”

“I wish I could tell them to myself. And on the other side, think how many stories there are—to which there are no medals attached.”

“You mean?”

Mr. Winthrop sat down in the big chair opposite. The rain had stopped, and through the wide bow-window came a sudden flash of sunshine, lighting up the sober room, and turning the bronze medal in Blue Bonnet’s hand to gold. “You know the story of the Alamo?” he said.

“I could not be a Texas girl and not know it,” Blue Bonnet answered,—she could hardly remember when her father had first told it to her.

“There is a story to stir the hearts of men for all time! I should like an ‘Alamo medal’ to put among these others.”

“And they must have had them, if—I see now what you meant, Cousin Tracy.”

“Did you know that among those men was one whose father had been a Woodford man? A distant connection of the family, at that?”

Blue Bonnet shook her head. “I never knew that.”

“Woodford should be proud of him. Not a bad subject for a Sargent, eh?”

It seemed to Blue Bonnet, that if all roads led to Rome, most subjects nowadays led up, sooner or later, to the Sargent. “Then you know about the Sargent competition?” she asked.

“My dear SeÑorita, could one have relatives in Woodford, and not know of it?”

“And you feel that way about it, too? Oh, I am glad!”

Mr. Winthrop smiled slightly. “I have sometimes thought that if I lived in Woodford, I might be tempted to feel that way about it.”

Blue Bonnet smiled across at him in perfect understanding. “I’m not going to try, you know.”

“Ah!” Then Cousin Tracy’s face sobered; Lucinda would not at all approve of the turn the conversation was taking.

“Isn’t that a mistake?” he asked. “Will not your grandmother and aunt be disappointed if you do not try?”

“That’s the worst of it,” Blue Bonnet admitted. “Somehow, not doing the things that perhaps one ought to do seems to make one more uncomfortable here than it used to at home on the ranch.”

“It looks as though you were developing a New England conscience. An exceedingly troublesome possession to have around—at times, but, once acquired, extremely difficult to get rid of.”

“I believe you,” Blue Bonnet answered, ruefully.

She was sure of it, as she lay awake that night in the big bed in the spare room, listening to the unaccustomed city noises, and trying not to listen to the thoughts running so persistently through her mind. How disappointed Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda would be at her not trying, how pleased if she did; how proud Uncle Cliff would be, if she won a prize. And like an undercurrent through it all, her father’s story of the Alamo. How odd that one of those men should have been from a Woodford family! A connection of the family!

“I reckon I’ll just have to do it!” she sighed at last.

She did not oversleep the next morning; when the maid tapped at her door, she found Blue Bonnet up and dressed.

“I’ve had a beautiful time!” Blue Bonnet told the sisters, as she and Cousin Tracy were starting for the depot.

“I hope Cousin Elizabeth will lend you to us again,” Cousin Honoria said, and Cousin Augusta added that it was wonderful how a young person brightened up a house.