Boyd was in two minds about claiming that dance—it wouldn’t do the little Texan any harm to be called down; but when the time came, he presented himself before Blue Bonnet, outwardly as smiling as usual.

“Would you mind if we sat it out?” she asked.

Boyd looked his surprise; she had not been sitting out any of the other dances, and again that uneasy feeling came over him. “As you like, of course,” he answered, leading the way to the old bench under a big apple tree just outside.

“I wanted to tell you,” Blue Bonnet began at once,—“I’ve thought it all over, and it doesn’t seem fair not to tell you—that I know about—”

Boyd’s quick glance of astonishment, even though she felt it to be half assumed, made it hard to go on.

“About your Sargent paper,” she added determinedly.

“Is that to be wondered at? It is down on the board with the rest.”

“I think you know what I mean. You know that those notes you dropped the other day belonged to Alec.” “Upon my word, that is—”

“And that the subject you used was really the one he was using.”

“Aren’t you taking a good deal for granted?” Boyd broke in; she should not have it all her own way.

“You know what I say is so,” Blue Bonnet insisted. “Those were Alec’s notes, the subject was his, and all at once he gave up sending in a paper. It’s very plain.”

“It has not occurred to you that Alec might have given me those notes?”

“Then, in that case, you would not have looked so—ashamed, while you were picking them up.”

Boyd sprang to his feet, his face crimson. “I don’t wonder they sent you East to be taught—manners!”

It was Blue Bonnet’s turn to crimson, but she held back the retort trembling at the edge of her tongue; she had come out there to tell Boyd Trent what she knew, and she had told him. It was inconceivable that a Trent—the General’s grandson, and Alec’s cousin—should have done this thing.

“I only wish you were a boy!” Boyd said.

“I’d like well to be—for a few moments,” Blue Bonnet answered, turning away.

Boyd did not follow her; instead he wandered off to the lower end of the yard, out of sight of the lantern-lighted barn, but not out of hearing of the fiddle played by Amanda’s Uncle Dave. Leaning against the old stone wall, the boy stared miserably out over the broad moonlit meadow.

The worst of it was that he did not know what Blue Bonnet would do now. As things were, it would be just his luck for that paper to take a prize. It ought to, considering how carefully Alec had prepared those notes; there had been very little left for him to do, beyond putting them together. He wouldn’t have bothered about writing a paper at all—what did he care for Woodford customs?—except that his grandfather had seemed to expect it, and he wanted to keep on the right side of his grandfather—for various reasons. Alec shouldn’t have left the notes lying around, he knew he had been hunting for a subject; and anyhow, they were only notes—taken from books; he wouldn’t have thought of taking a real paper. There would have been plenty of time for Alec to get up another one; it was the sort of thing he liked doing. If only Blue Bonnet had not—Alec could have been depended on not to tell; he had not referred to the matter since—Boyd moved impatiently; that brief interview between his cousin and himself was one of the things he preferred to forget.

It was all a horrid mess whatever way you looked at it; he would be mighty glad when school closed; next fall he should be going back to his own school; he never wanted to see Woodford again. In the meantime, he supposed that Amanda girl was wondering where her partner for this last dance was? She would have to wonder, that was all.

They were finishing the dance as he went back to the barn. Amanda received his murmured apology about a sudden headache in indignant silence; she didn’t believe he had a headache.

More than once, during the ride home, Boyd felt Kitty’s inquisitive eyes upon him. “Why aren’t you singing with the rest of us?” she demanded at last.

“I’d rather listen.”

“You didn’t look as if you were doing even that,” Kitty remarked.

Alec glanced at his cousin; something had happened during that sitting out.

“Don’t let’s wait to talk,” Susy urged; “we’ll be home before we know it now. Mrs. Parker, mayn’t we go around the long way? It’s such a beautiful night.”

But Mrs. Parker vetoed this request; the short way ’round was fully long enough in her opinion.

Two or three days later, Blue Bonnet came in after school waving a letter. “I met the carrier! It’s from Uncle Cliff! He expects to get here by the twelfth. He will be here in two weeks! And then in ten days school will be out!” Blue Bonnet waltzed Solomon about the room excitedly. There was a litter of sewing about the sitting-room; Blue Bonnet was to take her summer things back with her, and Grandmother insisted on having a share in the making of them. Being fitted by Grandmother was much pleasanter than being fitted by Mrs. Morrow, Blue Bonnet thought; she didn’t fill her mouth full of pins, and then sigh if one so much as stirred.

Not that there were no fittings to be gone through with at the old-fashioned house at the further end of the village; Mrs. Morrow was making the new white dress for “Closing Day” right now, and Blue Bonnet was due in her little trying-on room right now, too.

“To think that it’s only two weeks!” Blue Bonnet looked about the sitting-room a little soberly; would she be homesick for it after she got back to the ranch? The great living-room there was not much like this, certainly.

“Only a matter of weeks,” Aunt Lucinda said, dislodging Solomon from the piece of muslin, where he had suddenly elected to take a nap.

Blue Bonnet’s face sobered even more; if only they wouldn’t care so much. “Uncle Cliff thinks Chula had better go out to Darrel’s for the summer,” she went on. “And, oh, Grandmother! He’s going to give me a week in New York before we go West!”

“That will be fine!” Mrs. Clyde said, her thoughts going back to the Spring afternoon when the other Elizabeth had sat there on that same lounge telling of certain plans, a letter from Texas in her hand.

“I think, Blue Bonnet,” Aunt Lucinda suggested, “that Mrs. Morrow will be wondering where you are.”

“You’d think she give that up by now, wouldn’t you?” Blue Bonnet remarked. “But she always looks just as surprised as if it was the first time I’d kept her waiting. Come on, Solomon, you may go, too,—but you are not to chase the cat, remember.”

The “We are Seven’s” received the news of Mr. Ashe’s expected arrival with mingled pleasure and regret. “It isn’t that we mind his coming, if it didn’t mean your going,” Kitty explained, linking her arm through Blue Bonnet’s.

“I suppose,” Ruth said, “that if you asked him your prettiest, he would let you stay on through the summer.”

“That’s one of the things you’re not likely to find out,” Blue Bonnet laughed.

The seven were out in full force to welcome Mr. Ashe. “May I have her this time?” he asked Kitty.

“I reckon we’ll have to lend her to you—for the summer,” Kitty answered; “but you’ll have to promise first to get her back before school opens.” “Woodford appears to agree with you, Honey,” Mr. Ashe said, as the club left them at the gate. He stood a moment before opening it. It was over five months since he had seen her. She had grown taller in the five months; taller, and a bit older. “I suppose one of these trips I shall come back and find you quite grown up,” he said.

Blue Bonnet’s laugh was reassuring. “Not as long as I can help it! Tell me about everything, Uncle Cliff! It doesn’t seem believable that in just a little while now I’ll be going back. They’ll be glad to see me, won’t they?”

“Uncle Joe intimated pretty plainly that if I came back without you this time he wouldn’t hold himself responsible for anything that might happen.”

“One thing, there won’t be anything changed!”

Uncle Cliff’s eyes twinkled.

“And please, Uncle Cliff, you’ll ask Grandmother the first thing? I want that settled. There she is in the garden; Aunt Lucinda’s out.”

“Haven’t you asked her, Honey?”

“I waited till you came; I didn’t want to give her too much time for thinking it over in.”

“It is really very good of you to be glad to see me,” Mr. Ashe said, as Grandmother came forward to meet him, “considering that this time I do not ‘go back alone.’”

“I have been telling myself that turn and turn about is only fair play,” Mrs. Clyde answered; “and that the fall is not so far off.”

“Please, Grandmother,” Blue Bonnet’s tone was most insinuating, “it won’t take you very long to get ready?”

“‘To get ready’?” Mrs. Clyde repeated.

“Why, to go with us. Uncle Cliff and I have been hoping and planning for that this ever so long; but I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t want you to have time to think up objections in. There aren’t any really, you know.”

Grandmother sat down on one of the garden benches, looking from Blue Bonnet to Mr. Ashe in a surprise too great for words.

“It would be so lovely,” Blue Bonnet sat down beside her; “for us, I mean, and we would try to make it as pleasant as possible for you. You see, I never knew, until I came East, how much I needed a grandmother.”

“The need was mutual,” Grandmother said softly.

“And you could keep me from slipping back into the old spoilt ways; you could see that I did my mending and practising, and only took coffee at Sunday morning breakfast—”

Mrs. Clyde smiled. “At least, I should be on hand to bring you back with me in the fall;” and suddenly, Texas did not seem as far away as it had. Lucinda wanted to go abroad this summer—the only drawback had been leaving her mother alone. She would like to see the Blue Bonnet Ranch, where the other Elizabeth had been so happy during those few years of her married life. And it would mean too the not parting with Blue Bonnet for the summer.

“I will think it over,” she said.

“But that is just what I didn’t want you to do,” Blue Bonnet protested. “Please, couldn’t you promise first?”

“Couldn’t you?” Mr. Ashe said. “Blue Bonnet and I have certainly set our hearts on this; and I have a rooted objection to having our young lady disappointed—unnecessarily.”

“There comes Aunt Lucinda, I hear Solomon’s bark!” Blue Bonnet jumped up. “May I go and tell her it’s all settled, Grandmother?”

“You may go and tell her what it is we are trying to settle,” Mrs. Clyde laughed.

Miss Lucinda approved of the plan thoroughly. “I think it would be a delightful trip for you, Mother,” she said.

“And next year, maybe you won’t be wanting to go abroad, Aunt Lucinda,” Blue Bonnet said; “then you and Grandmother can both come out to the ranch.”

“Perhaps.” Miss Lucinda agreed.

After supper, Blue Bonnet and her uncle went for a ride. “Chula’ll miss me,” Blue Bonnet said, patting the glossy neck; “she’s the dearest horse.”

“And Firefly will be mighty glad to see you. Listen, Honey, I’ve been cogitating. Don’t you want to take one or two of those girls along with you for the summer? You must be sort of used to having girls to run with by now.”

“Uncle Cliff! Oh, I would love that!”

“Kitty, I suppose—who else?”

“Kitty would be most fun. And Sarah’s been—you don’t know how good Sarah Blake was to me a while back, Uncle Cliff!”

“How about telling me, Honey?”

Mr. Ashe listened to the rather sketchy story she told him, filling in the outlines from his knowledge of her. When she finished, he leaned nearer, laying a hand over hers. “Sarah’s going out to the ranch with us if I have to kidnap her.”

The thought of Sarah being kidnapped sent Blue Bonnet off into a fit of laughter. “But,” she said presently, “it wouldn’t do, really, to pick and choose like that. The others would feel ever so hurt. They’re ‘We are Seven’s’ too.”

“Then we’ll corral the whole bunch. There’s room enough for them on the ranch, and if there isn’t, the one adjoining is in the market.”

“I wish we could! They’ve all been so nice to me, and we’ve had such good times together. But I’m afraid it’s impossible.” “I thought it was a copy-book maxim that nothing was impossible.”

“You haven’t lived ten months in Woodford, Uncle Cliff.”

“The first thing is—whether you really want them all to go?”

“Indeed I do!”

“Then the next thing to do is to see how your grandmother feels about it. It may strike her as a pretty big proposition.”

“Grandmother won’t mind—she likes young people about. And if she says yes, I suppose you will allow their fathers and mothers some voice in the matter?”

“As a matter of courtesy, it might be as well to,” Mr. Ashe laughed. “How about your neighbor; I thought it was settled that he was to have a taste of ranch life?”

“Alec! Oh, he would like that. It would do him a lot of good. His cousin is going abroad for the summer, to stay with his people.”

It was Aunt Lucinda who looked dubious when this latter plan was explained. “Wouldn’t it mean too much responsibility for you, Mother?” she asked.

“But please,” Blue Bonnet exclaimed, “we’d try not to trouble Grandmother one bit; she wouldn’t have to do anything for us; and we’d be as good as gold. Why, most of the time, she wouldn’t know we were on earth.” “My dear—” Aunt Lucinda began.

“That would hardly be a very satisfactory state of mind to be in,” Mrs. Clyde said; she smiled down into Blue Bonnet’s eager face. “I should hate to be the one to deprive any of the young people of such a summer’s outing. And the fact that I am going may make it the easier for you to secure their parents’ consents.”

“Thank you so much!” Blue Bonnet said joyously; and Aunt Lucinda reflected that it was very improbable they would all be allowed to go.

“The first one who makes you a bit of trouble you send to me, ma’am,” Mr. Ashe said.

“They would hate that so!” Blue Bonnet laughed. “But none of us would dream of bothering Grandmother. And it’s all settled beautifully! We’ll look like a party of Raymond’s Tourists, won’t we? And now I can tackle those dreadful exams with a clear mind. They begin to-morrow.”

Blue Bonnet found Alec in his garden the next morning before breakfast. “Uncle Cliff’s coming over to see General Trent by and by,” she said. “Guess what for?”

Alec’s gray eyes lightened, as if before them he already saw the wide open sweep of the prairie. “Oh, I say!” he cried.

“Grandmother’s going!”

“Good!”

“And—Uncle Cliff says that it is only fair to prepare you—all the girls, if we can manage it.”

Alec stood the shock bravely. “It’ll prove an eye opener for Sarah.”

“It’ll be like having seven sisters, won’t it—for you?”

“I’ve always understood,” Alec laughed, “that the only boy in a large family of girls got a lot of waiting on and spoiling.”

“You think your grandfather will say yes?”

“I’m not much afraid of his saying no,” Alec answered.

The six girls were the next to be told. “This isn’t the official invitation,” Blue Bonnet explained, as they sat in a little group under a tree in the school yard—she had started for school good and early that morning; “Uncle Cliff and I are going visiting this afternoon, but I wanted you to be prepared—so you wouldn’t say no instead of yes when your mothers asked if you would like to go.”

The wonder of it was holding even Kitty speechless.

“If we could—” Ruth sighed at last.

“Do you want us to go—very, very much, Blue Bonnet?” Debby asked.

“I do.”

“Then,” Debby nodded confidently at the others, “it’s as good as settled. Blue Bonnet always gets what she wants—if she wants it hard enough.” And, to everybody’s surprise except Blue Bonnet’s and her uncle’s, Debby’s word proved true. Fathers and mothers shook their heads doubtfully, uncles and aunts indulged in grave forebodings, big brothers and sisters offered advice, but after not too much delay all the invitations were accepted.

Sarah went about with a look of continual astonishment in her light blue eyes; to be going to Texas, to be breaking away from all the old routine of home duties and simple village amusements for a whole vacation—Sarah and her sense of duty underwent daily conflict.

“But your father and mother want you to go!” Blue Bonnet argued. “You’re bound to obey your parents, Sarah.”

“Sure!” Kitty added. “And don’t you worry, Sallykins, you’re bound to run across a few things now and then which only your strong sense of duty will enable you to go through with. Wait until you’re face to face with your first tamale.”

School was to close on the twenty-second. The following week, Mr. Ashe and Blue Bonnet were to spend in New York, giving the fellow travelers time to make their final preparations,—the whole party leaving Woodford for Texas on the first of July.

The ease and rapidity with which Mr. Ashe detailed these arrangements, took the six club members’ breaths away. “We might be simply running in to Boston for a day’s shopping,” Susy commented.

“The more time the more worry,” Blue Bonnet said.

There were three all-engrossing topics of conversation during those days; the Texas trip, the hoped-for promotion, and the Sargent.

“Two of which you’ve a share in, and one of which you haven’t!” Kitty said to Blue Bonnet, now, after enumerating them.

“Did you know,” Debby asked, “that Boyd Trent had withdrawn his paper?”

“Withdrawn his paper!” five voices echoed excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I was waiting for a clear field,” Debby laughed. “He told me so himself this morning.”

“But why?” Kitty asked.

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“Perhaps he thought it wasn’t good enough,” Ruth suggested.

“I’m sure I sometimes wish I could withdraw mine,” Amanda sighed.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference; he’d never have got a prize,” Kitty declared.

As she went on up the street after leaving the girls, Blue Bonnet told herself that she knew why Boyd had withdrawn his paper. Perhaps he had told Debby, knowing Debby would tell her among the others. She had scarcely seen him since the night of Amanda’s birthday; to all intents and purposes, he was devoting himself to baseball during most of his out-of-school time.

That relations continued strained between the two cousins it was easy to see; a mere outward semblance of friendliness being kept up on the General’s account.

“Solomon,” Blue Bonnet said, as he came to meet her, “should I have said what I did that night, or shouldn’t I? Maybe it was more or less of a rushing-in business? But it didn’t seem fair not to let him know why one couldn’t dance with him, or be friends. And it was true!”

Solomon appeared perfectly willing to take her word for it.

“What’s the trouble, Honey?” Uncle Cliff asked, as she came across the lawn to the bench where he sat, busy over some papers Uncle Joe had forwarded him.

“Just some school business,” she hadn’t any right to tell even such a close confidant as Uncle Cliff about it. “You don’t get much chance to lead the Simple Life going to school.”

“The twenty-second’s coming nearer every day, Honey.”

“At least, the exams will be over soon; the Sargent winners aren’t given out until the very last day, at closing exercises.” “Why didn’t you try? Afraid of cutting out all the others?” Mr. Ashe laughed.

“I did think of it—then I changed my mind.”

She had fallen into their ways and customs pretty well, Mr. Ashe thought; she couldn’t have been expected to go in for them all.

Blue Bonnet broke off a spray of white roses, brushing them lightly across her face. She was sorry on Grandmother’s and Aunt Lucinda’s account; they were disappointed, though they had said nothing. She would like them to know the rights of it, and to be able to show Grandmother the little bundle of papers thrust into one of the pigeonholes of her desk.

“By the way,” her uncle asked, “how about the present financial condition?”

“I’m getting on,” Blue Bonnet laughed; “last month I actually saved a whole ten-cent piece. Aunt Lucinda thinks I’m almost ready for an advance. She’s giving me a camera as a reward of merit.”

Nor had the little brick house on the mantelpiece been neglected; its contents were to go to the Floating Hospital. She had not made that promised visit to Aunt Lucinda’s crippled girls—that was one of the things that must wait over until fall now; next year she meant not to have so many wait-overs. “I had a wire this morning from Maldon,” Mr. Ashe said; “he places The Wanderer at our disposal for the trip West; she happens to be lying idle in Boston.”

“How perfectly lovely! I must go tell Grandmother; and now—” Blue Bonnet’s face was radiant, “now, Solomon needn’t travel in the baggage-car.”

“Maldon will be relieved when he learns that,” Mr. Ashe observed.

The six received this latest piece of news wide-eyed. “Travel all the way to Texas in a private car!” Amanda exclaimed.

“Blue Bonnet Ashe!” Kitty declared solemnly. “It was a lucky day for us when you came East!”

The Boston relatives arrived on the twenty-first for a short visit; Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta looked upon Cousin Elizabeth’s proposed Western trip in mingled amazement and dismay; a little kindly advice, a little gentle persuasion, were the least they could offer.

What would she do on a ranch—where there were cowboys and Mexicans and—Cousin Honoria glanced appealingly at her sister.

“Mustangs!” Cousin Augusta felt that she had added the final touch.

Blue Bonnet left the room with a haste that Grandmother could only envy. “But I do not intend to ride the mustangs,” she said; “and I have always wanted to see a real cowboy; and Benita is a Mexican. Elizabeth was very fond of Benita; so is Blue Bonnet.”

“I think Mother will enjoy her summer very much,” Miss Lucinda said, patting Solomon; Solomon had been more than ever attached to Miss Lucinda lately. Solomon couldn’t understand just what was about to happen, but he had an instinctive feeling that in an emergency Miss Lucinda was likely to prove a veritable tower of defence.

It was that afternoon that Blue Bonnet came home jubilant, as she had that Friday before Christmas. “I’ve passed!” she announced. “That’s twice running! Looks like I was getting the habit! And I needn’t have worked so hard, after all; it wasn’t such a close thing. Alec’s passed too,” she went on hurriedly, seeing reproof in her aunt’s eye; “and the girls—Amanda’s conditioned. She’ll have to study this summer. I did think there wouldn’t be a single school book along.”

“A little regular study on the part of each one of you girls every day—” Miss Lucinda began.

“But,” Blue Bonnet broke in, “nothing is too regular out there, not even the meals; that’s the delightful part of it.”

And Grandmother laughed at the sudden look in Cousin Honoria’s and Cousin Augusta’s eyes. At last, the twenty-second really came; Blue Bonnet, standing before the glass, while Aunt Lucinda buttoned the long line of tiny buttons down the back of the new white gown, decided that going to school has its attractions, Closing Day being one of them. And later, sitting in her place in the big assembly-room, sharing the common thrill of eager excitement in the air, she was sure of it.

The graduation exercises were to take place that night. Blue Bonnet was not much interested in those; she was waiting for the great moment of the morning—the announcing of the names of the winners of the Sargent prizes.

It came at last, the tall boy who had taken her in to supper the night of her dance leading the list; Blue Bonnet thought his subject sounded very dull, like himself. If only Mr. Hunt would hurry along to Alec’s class! Would Alec—

“‘Remember the Alamo,’” Mr. Hunt read presently, “Alexander Morton Trent.”

It was General Trent who led the applause that time.

“Now our room!” Kitty whispered. “It’ll be Hester—for the girls!”

But it was not Hester.

“‘The Sargents of the Future,’” Mr. Hunt announced, “Katherine Benton Clark,” and no one was more surprised than Kitty herself.

“To think,” she whispered to Blue Bonnet, as she came back to her place, “to think how dreadfully near I came to not being allowed to try!”

After the general exercises were various gatherings in the different classrooms, congratulations to be made and received, good-byes to be said.

“And so,” Mr. Hunt said, meeting Blue Bonnet on the stairs, “you did not let your class go on without you?”

“Not either time,” she answered happily.

“I understand that you are off to Texas before long, taking a good portion of the school with you?”

“To make sure that they do not go on without me,” she laughed back. “Good-bye,” she added, holding out her hand, “and—thank you so much.” He had been mighty kind, she told herself,—what a perfectly delightful tutor he would have made!

It was towards late afternoon when she reached home, tired and happy. The General was there, looking very proud.

“For the second time,” he was saying, for rather more than the second time. “He really is a clever boy—they both are, for that matter; it seems that Boyd withdrew his paper almost at the last—for some reason or other I couldn’t quite make out—or we might have had a tie between them.” He turned to Blue Bonnet. “Alec tells me that it is really you, my dear, whom I have to thank—for supplying him with such an uncommonly good subject.”

Cousin Tracy looked interested. “So that’s what you did with it, SeÑorita?”

“I passed it on into the right hands, you see,” Blue Bonnet said, and presently she slipped away to her room.

The big trunk which Benita had packed with such loving care for the journey East stood open, and partly filled, and on the lounge lay her suit case ready for the morrow.

Blue Bonnet sat down near it, Solomon beside her, thinking of that last afternoon at home, and the hopes and fears filling her heart then; thinking of a good many other things besides.

It was going to be a different going back from the one she had so insisted on that November morning; very “decently and in order,” for—Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced—was not Aunt Lucinda superintending the packing?

How many things had happened in this room; she had had her good moments and her bad, but the former had predominated; and when next fall came it would be almost like coming home.

“And if I haven’t learned anything else, Solomon,” she observed, “I have learned to make a bed beautifully; Aunt Lucinda said as much this morning.”

“Will you be wanting any help, Miss?” Delia asked, from the open door, and Blue Bonnet relinquished most willingly the task of unbuttoning that long row of buttons.

“Katie and me ain’t liking to think of to-morrow,” Delia said. “’Tis the dull house this’ll be the summer long.”

“You’ll be dusting the parlor every Saturday morning now,” Blue Bonnet laughed; “not just when I’ve forgotten it.” It was awfully good of everybody to be nice about not wanting her to go.

She was sitting on the porch in the twilight, thinking contentedly of the long twilights to come on the ranch veranda, with Grandmother sitting close by, and all the “We are Seven’s” and Alec there, too, when Mrs. Clyde said slowly, “Blue Bonnet, why—when Cousin Tracy gave you such excellent material to work with—didn’t you try for the Sargent? Why, at one time, we thought you were going to,—your aunt and I.”

Blue Bonnet looked out across the shadowy lawn; she believed she would tell Grandmother; it should be their secret between them.

“I have got a reason, truly,” she said; “but it takes in such a number of other people. It began one afternoon when Boyd Trent met me out riding, and—”

“When in doubt, always confide in your grandmother,” Mrs. Clyde advised, as Blue Bonnet hesitated; “that’s one of the things grandmothers were made for.”

“All right,” Blue Bonnet answered.

“Please,” she asked, as she finished her story, “was it very dreadful—what I said to Boyd that night?”

“I think, taking everything into consideration, that it was very—pardonable,” Grandmother said.

“And you won’t mind, now that you know I really did mean to try? And Alec won a prize. I don’t believe I should have done that; and if I had, Kitty couldn’t’ve.”

“How should I mind, dear?—now that I understand your reason for not trying.”

Blue Bonnet drew a deep breath of relief. “Then I haven’t a single worry left on my mind. I didn’t like you and Aunt Lucinda thinking I was being—just horrid.”

“I am very glad you have told me this, Blue Bonnet. You must let me tell your aunt.”

From the stile came the sound of Alec’s whistling—“All the Blue Bonnets are over the border;” and from the open windows of Mr. Ashe’s room came the same tune, as he bent over the packing of his valise.

“They will be over pretty soon now,” Blue Bonnet laughed.

“Blue Bonnet,” Miss Clyde said from the doorway, “Cousin Honoria is hoping that you are not too tired to sing one of your Spanish songs for them?”

“Of course I’m not!” Blue Bonnet answered. “Grave or gay?” she asked, as Mr. Winthrop opened the piano for her.

“Both,” he replied.

She gave them both, choosing, in closing, the little song Benita had crooned over her work during those final days at home last year, with its soft Spanish words of farewell.

Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta suddenly found themselves envying Cousin Elizabeth. It was wonderful how a young person brightened up a house.

When she came back to the veranda, Blue Bonnet found a small detachment of the “We are Seven’s” there, with Alec and Grandmother.

“We only came to say,” Debby explained, “that we are so glad we haven’t got to say a really good-bye; and that we will be down at the station in the morning.”

“And mind,” Kitty pointed a warning forefinger, “mind you and Mr. Ashe don’t forget to come back for us!”

“As if—” Blue Bonnet laughed.

Just before going to bed, Blue Bonnet, in dressing gown and slippers, came to her aunt’s room.

Miss Clyde was sitting by one of the open windows, looking out at the soft, summer starlight, filled with the scent of the yellow and white honeysuckle covering the veranda below. She was thinking of the past ten months, wondering how deeply their teachings had taken root with Blue Bonnet.

“May I come in—for just a few moments?” Blue Bonnet asked. “I want to—talk;” and apparently forgetting that Miss Lucinda did not approve of her sitting on the floor, she dropped down beside her aunt’s chair, resting an arm on her lap, quite as though Aunt Lucinda were Grandmother. “I can talk so much better this way,” she said. “Please, Aunt Lucinda, I’m afraid I’ve been a lot of trouble to you—all these months. But it hasn’t had to be ‘Elizabeth!’ so very often lately, has it? You do think I’ve improved some?”

Miss Lucinda smiled. “I do not think that you have ever meant to be ‘a lot of trouble,’—the words are yours, not mine, my dear; and it has been a great comfort to both your grandmother and myself, having you with us.”

“And when I come back next fall, you’ll see—” Blue Bonnet said earnestly. “You’ve been ever so good to me, Aunt Lucinda—even if I didn’t—exactly think so—at the time. And I thought—maybe—we’d make this our real good-bye; because when Uncle Cliff and I get back from New York, it won’t be for much more than a stopping over.” “But it is not to be good-bye,” Miss Lucinda laid a hand over Blue Bonnet’s—“only, until we meet again.”

“And,” Blue Bonnet added softly, as her aunt bent to kiss her, “‘Va Usted con Dios!’”

THE END.

The
Blue Bonnet Series

By
Lela Horn Richards
and
Caroline E. Jacobs

Each, one vol., large 12mo, illustrated, $2.00

THE COSY CORNER SERIES