It was characteristic of Blue Bonnet that she told of that invitation the moment she entered the sitting-room, on her return.

Blue Bonnet was growing fond of the large, rather formal sitting-room. Best of all, she liked it at this hour; with the twilight coming on, and with only the firelight filling the room, softening everything.

“Aunt Lucinda,” she said now, coming to a halt just inside the doorway, “I’ve invited company to supper for Wednesday. Mrs. Prior, from the town farm. She said she hadn’t any friends nor anywhere to go, and I felt so sorry for her that I asked her to come and see me.” Blue Bonnet paused, out of breath.

From her side of the fireplace, Mrs. Clyde cast a swift glance of amusement at her daughter.

“Go and take your things off, Elizabeth,” Miss Lucinda said; “then come and explain.”

It was a rather subdued Blue Bonnet who reentered the room a moment or two later, and drew a stool up close to Mrs. Clyde’s chair.

“Elizabeth,” her aunt said quietly, “first of all,85 I should like to know what you were doing at the town farm?”

“We were out on the turn-pike, Aunt Lucinda, and I saw the house—and we went over. Kitty didn’t want to go.”

“Kitty was quite right.”

“We didn’t go in, Aunt Lucinda. We met Mrs. Prior up the road. She is a very nice old lady. She was so pleased when I asked her. It must be very tiresome, having nowhere to go.”

“Mrs. Prior,” Mrs. Clyde said thoughtfully; “why, you remember her, Lucinda? I always did think Hannah Carew treated her shamefully.” She laid a hand lightly on Blue Bonnet’s head for a moment. “That was a very kind impulse, Elizabeth. I think we must try to make this second tea-party of yours a success.”

Blue Bonnet laid her head down on Grandmother’s knee with a little sigh of relief.

“Yes,” Miss Clyde said gravely; “but hereafter, Elizabeth, I would like to have you consult either your grandmother or myself before inviting strangers to the house.”

“Yes, Aunt Lucinda,” Blue Bonnet answered; the next moment, with recovered spirits, she was giving her grandmother an account of her walk.

“Far too long a walk,” Miss Lucinda said presently; “it was almost dark before you reached home, Elizabeth.”

86 “That’s because we stopped to talk,” Blue Bonnet explained; “Kitty didn’t want to stop.”

Miss Clyde smiled slightly. “I begin to think I have been wronging Kitty.”

“I don’t believe she’d have minded—only she thought it tiresome,” Blue Bonnet remarked.

Tuesday afternoon Blue Bonnet came home from school in high spirits. “Amanda Parker’s aunt—she lives on a farm, Aunt Lucinda—has invited Amanda and all of us girls out to supper to-morrow,” she announced. “She’s going to send the hay wagon in for us; we’re to start from Amanda’s right after school. I can go, can’t I, Aunt Lucinda? Oh, I do hope it will be pleasant.”

“You are invited for to-morrow, Elizabeth?” Miss Clyde asked.

“Yes, Aunt Lucinda.”

Miss Clyde waited a moment; then she said, “I think you must have forgotten, Elizabeth, that you have a guest coming to supper to-morrow.”

“Oh!” Blue Bonnet exclaimed; without another word, she turned and went to her practising.

Very stormy were the chords that sounded through the quiet house for the next ten minutes, and the time kept deplorable; but for once, Miss Clyde let these irregularities pass unnoticed.

Just before dusk Blue Bonnet ran down to tell Amanda that she could not go. Her coming87 was received with shouts of acclamation by the group of girls gathered on the Parker front porch.

Blue Bonnet went straight to her point. “I can’t go,” she said.

“You can’t go!” Kitty cried; “I do think Miss Clyde might—”

“It isn’t Aunt Lucinda. I—I’ve got company coming.”

“Bring her along,” Amanda said. “One more won’t count. Is she from Texas?”

“No,” Blue Bonnet began, “she’s—”

“See that she wears her old clothes,” Ruth interrupted; “we’re going to sit right down in the bottom of the wagon.”

“But—” Blue Bonnet commenced again.

“She won’t mind that, will she?” Debby asked anxiously.

“She—” Blue Bonnet was getting desperate.

“Be sure you both bring plenty of wraps,” Sarah interposed; “it’ll be cold coming home.”

“Will you listen to me!” Blue Bonnet stamped a foot impatiently. “It’s old—”

Instantly, Kitty had flown at her and was shaking her vigorously. “Elizabeth Ashe, didn’t I try to keep you from going over there Saturday afternoon? And you would go! And you would do it! And now—” she turned to the rest indignantly. “It’s that old Mrs. Prior—over at the88 Poor Farm. Elizabeth invited her to come to supper to-morrow!”

“Mrs. Prior!” Amanda was the first to speak.

“You see, I couldn’t very well bring her along,” Blue Bonnet said.

“No,” Amanda agreed.

“Did you really ask her to supper, Elizabeth?” Debby Slade asked wonderingly.

“Indeed she did,” Kitty exclaimed. “I only hope, Elizabeth, you got the scolding you deserved when you got home!”

“Well, I didn’t,” Blue Bonnet answered quickly.

“Oh, dear,” Amanda said regretfully, “I wish we could put it off, Elizabeth; but Aunt Huldah’ll be expecting us—and there wouldn’t be time to let her know.”

“There’s plenty of time to let Mrs. Prior know,” Kitty cried; “we’ll put her off. You and I’ll go out there to-morrow noon and tell her, Elizabeth. If we hurry all we can, there’ll be time enough.”

But Blue Bonnet shook her head, “I wouldn’t do it—for fifty rides. You saw how pleased she was, Kitty!”

“But she could come some other time,” Kitty persisted.

“She’s coming to-morrow,” Blue Bonnet declared; “I must go back now—good-night, all of you.”

“I’m coming, too,” Sarah said; and they went89 up the street together. At the parsonage gate, Sarah waited a moment before going in. “That was very nice of you, Elizabeth,” she said a little hesitatingly. “No one ever expected that Mrs. Prior would have to go to the poorhouse. She felt it dreadfully.”

Blue Bonnet glanced slowly up and down the village street, with its air of simple prosperity and homely comfort. Here and there, lights were flashing out through the twilight, mothers were calling their children home. “How could you all let her go?” she asked.

“Why, she had to!”

“But why?”

Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know, I’ve never thought much about it—there wasn’t anywhere else for her to go, I suppose.”

“Why wasn’t there?”

Sarah shook her head again. “What queer questions you do ask, Elizabeth!”

Blue Bonnet went on up the street to her own gate; there she met Alec. “Bet you a big apple you’ve been down to Amanda’s,” he said.

“Yes—to tell her I can’t go.”

Alec whistled. “Wouldn’t Miss Clyde—”

“Why do you all light on Aunt Lucinda the first thing?” Blue Bonnet interrupted. “I’ve got company coming—that’s all.”

“Who?”

90 “A friend.”

“Where from?”

Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced. “The Poor Farm,” she answered, then ran on up the path without waiting to explain.

“Well,” Kitty said to her the next morning the moment they met, “what’ve you been doing now?”

“Coming upstairs,” Blue Bonnet replied. She tossed her books down on her desk. “Do you know your Latin, Kitty?”

“I guess so.”

“I don’t; I was planning a beautiful home for old Mrs. Prior last night instead of studying.”

“Bother Mrs. Prior!” Kitty felt that the afternoon’s outing was shorn of half of its attraction. “Elizabeth,” she said, “I’d like to shake you.”

“You did last night,” Blue Bonnet answered; “I’d advise you not to try it again.”

“You are the provokingest girl!” Had it been Sarah who had elected to devote her afternoon to Mrs. Prior, Kitty could have borne it bravely.

Blue Bonnet had pulled out her Latin grammar and was hurriedly going over her lesson. Latin came the first thing after opening exercises; and Miss Rankin believed in thoroughness quite as firmly as did Aunt Lucinda; indeed, it seemed to Blue Bonnet that Miss Rankin and Aunt Lucinda were kindred souls.

91 Recess that morning was rather a trial to Blue Bonnet. Talk of the coming outing was the only topic in the “We are Seven” set. It was hard to feel out of it all. Moreover, Kitty would not count the cause lost; she coaxed and teased, scolded and reproached, until Blue Bonnet’s patience gave way.

“You talk as if I didn’t want to go!” she protested.

“If you did, you would,” Kitty declared, “only you care more for a tiresome old—”

“She isn’t tiresome, and she can’t help it if she is old. You’ll be old yourself some day—there’s no danger of your dying young, Kitty. And—and you all say it was a shame—her being sent to the poorhouse. If it was a shame, why didn’t someone prevent it? Then I wouldn’t have had to ask her to supper and lose my fun.”

Which form of reasoning was too much for Kitty. Before she could think of a suitable retort, the bell had rung and Miss Rankin was requesting Elizabeth Ashe and Kitty Clark to come to order.

Blue Bonnet was unusually prompt in getting home that noon; and equally slow about returning. Being just a little late to school did not worry Blue Bonnet in the least.

During the afternoon Kitty buried the hatchet, forwarding a note by Ruth and Debby, in which she had written—“Never mind, I’ll get Amanda92 to ask her aunt to ask us all again—and I’ll take good care that you don’t go within a mile of the town farm for a week beforehand.”

To which Blue Bonnet promptly wrote her answer, showing less discretion in her manner of doing it than Kitty had done.

“Elizabeth,” Miss Rankin asked, “what are you doing?”

“Writing a note, Miss Rankin,” the girl answered promptly.

“To whom?”

“That isn’t a fair question, Miss Rankin.”

Miss Rankin waived that point. “You may read it aloud, Elizabeth,” she said.

There was an instant hush. Blue Bonnet could and did break the rules in an easy-going, light-hearted way; but the little man?uverings and concealments in which many of the girls were adepts had never seemed to her worth while. And now she had been caught red-handed, writing a note!

“I am waiting, Elizabeth,” Miss Rankin said sharply.

Blue Bonnet’s color had risen. “All right,” she answered clearly.

There was another moment of waiting; then Miss Rankin said, “Elizabeth!”

“Yes, Miss Rankin?”

“I told you I was waiting!”

And again Blue Bonnet answered—“All right.”

93 “Elizabeth, bring that note to me at once.” Miss Rankin’s own color had risen.

There was a sudden flash of laughter in the girl’s eyes; going to the desk, she handed Miss Rankin the slip of paper, on which were written those two words—“All right!”

For a moment Miss Rankin did not speak; then she said, “You may remain after school, Elizabeth.”

Blue Bonnet sobered instantly; and presently, as she sat with her geography open before her, she drew a breath of dismay. Aunt Lucinda had said that probably Mrs. Prior would come early, and that she had better come right home as soon as school was out, and now—

It didn’t take Blue Bonnet long to make up her mind; it was a clear case of disobeying either Aunt Lucinda or Miss Rankin; on the whole, she preferred the latter course.

And when Miss Rankin, who played the march for the pupils, came back to her room after dismission, she found a little note on her desk and her bird flown.

“Dear Miss Rankin,”—she read—“I simply can’t stay this afternoon; but I will to-morrow, if you like. Elizabeth Ashe.”

Mrs. Prior was there when Elizabeth reached home. Miss Clyde was out; but Mrs. Clyde had invited the guest upstairs to her own sitting-room,94 where she was doing her best to entertain her; choosing carefully all such topics as could by no roundabout road lead up to the poor old woman’s present place of abode.

Blue Bonnet, coming to sit between the two with her embroidery, learned a rare lesson in tact and gentle courtesy that afternoon. It was pretty to see how, under Mrs. Clyde’s skilful touch, the little woman from the town farm lost her fear and self-consciousness.

Presently she leaned forward, taking Blue Bonnet’s work from her. “You must make the stitches so, deary,” she said.

Mrs. Clyde smiled, “Elizabeth looks upon needle work as a penance, I’m afraid.”

“How beautifully you do it,” Blue Bonnet said admiringly. “I never could learn to make them so even.”

Mrs. Prior flushed with pride; “I was always called a good needle-woman. It’s naught but pleasure to me.”

Blue Bonnet looked down at her brown fingers, slender and pliable, but which as yet had not taken kindly to the needle. “You can do some on mine, if you like,” she suggested. “I should think you’d like a change from your knitting.”

“You watch me, deary—maybe you’ll pick up some ideas that way,” Mrs. Prior answered.

A moment later, Miss Lucinda came in, bringing95 a whiff of the fresh outdoor air Blue Bonnet had been longing for all the afternoon. She saw the girl’s flushed cheeks, the tired droop of her shoulders. “Elizabeth,” she said, “I think Mrs. Prior would like a bunch of our chrysanthemums; they are unusually fine this year.”

In the garden Blue Bonnet found Alec. He knew by now who Blue Bonnet’s company was; Kitty had enlightened him that morning.

“How’s the guest of honor getting on?” he asked.

“Finely.” Blue Bonnet led the way to the sheltered corner of the garden where the chrysanthemums grew. “Got your knife, Alec? I always do forget to bring out the garden scissors.”

Under her direction, Alec cut a great cluster of the big white, yellow, and tawny blossoms.

“Don’t you love them?” Blue Bonnet laid her face caressingly against one of the round feathery balls. “Alec, do you know—Aunt Lucinda isn’t half bad.”

“No, nor even a quarter,” Alec answered; “hasn’t she just invited me to supper?”

They went in together. Delia was setting the table. She brought Blue Bonnet one of the big blue canton jars to fill with chrysanthemums.

“But it isn’t supper-time yet, Delia?” Blue Bonnet asked.

96 “It will be soon, miss,” the other answered; “Miss Clyde ordered supper early for to-night.”

“Then I reckon I’d best go tidy up a bit,” Blue Bonnet said to Alec; “I won’t be long.”

She came down again to find him in the parlor playing old-time songs for Mrs. Prior.

Mrs. Prior seemed to have grown several inches that afternoon. And when, soon after supper, she announced she must be going, and Miss Clyde ordered the carriage, her cup of joy was full.

To Blue Bonnet’s delight, her grandmother suggested that the two young people go too for the drive.

“But come straight home again, Elizabeth,” Miss Clyde added. “Remember, you have not studied your lessons yet.”

Which reminder brought a sudden disquieting remembrance of Miss Rankin to Blue Bonnet’s mind. A remembrance which the brisk ride in the fresh air and Mrs. Prior’s heartfelt thanks for her afternoon’s pleasure soon quieted.

The next morning on her way to school, Blue Bonnet met Miss Rankin. “Good morning,” she said hurriedly. “You—you got my note, Miss Rankin?”

“Good morning, Elizabeth. Yes, I got your note; I have not yet decided what to do about it.”

“To do, Miss Rankin? But I told you I would stay to-day.”

97 “To-day is not yesterday, Elizabeth.”

“Isn’t it just as good?” Blue Bonnet asked so innocently that a gleam of amusement showed in Miss Rankin’s eyes.

“Maybe,” Blue Bonnet suggested, “I’d better explain why it was I couldn’t stay yesterday.”

Miss Rankin answered that she thought so too.

Thereupon, Blue Bonnet told her of that first tea-party in her honor, of her coming home late for it, and of Miss Clyde’s displeasure. “And so, when I was going to have company yesterday, I couldn’t be late again—could I, Miss Rankin?” she asked.

And Miss Rankin, coming closer in this short walk to the real Blue Bonnet than she had in all these weeks the girl had been under her charge, felt herself weakening. “Nevertheless, Elizabeth,” she said, as they reached the schoolhouse, “it must not happen again; and I think it must be this afternoon—for the sake of the precedent.”

Blue Bonnet gave her a quick upward glance of mischief. “‘All right,’ Miss Rankin,” she answered.

On the stairs, she overtook Kitty. “Did you have a good time yesterday?” she asked.

“Immense,” Kitty answered. “But it would have been a good deal—immenser—if you hadn’t ratted, Elizabeth Ashe.”

“I didn’t—I had a previous engagement.”

98 “I hope you had a horribly stupid time.”

“I didn’t! Mrs. Prior was—”

“Now you look here, Elizabeth,” Kitty interrupted, “you needn’t go talking to me about the joys of compensation!”

“I won’t talk to you at all if you don’t behave. Kitty, I’ve been thinking—”

“Glad to hear it,” Kitty observed; “did it come hard, Elizabeth?”

“And I think,” Blue Bonnet went on, “that it would be ever so nice if each of you girls would invite Mrs. Prior to supper in turn.”

“She might come ‘too early,’” Kitty said—“‘a whole week too early.’”

“Kitty! Honestly, don’t you think it would be nice?”

“Nice for whom?”

“For Mrs. Prior. Kitty, you’re just horrid this morning.”

Kitty balanced herself on the edge of her desk. “Sarah,” she called, “just come listen to this!”

Sarah did listen,—Blue Bonnet enlarging upon her theme enthusiastically,—weighing the matter before she spoke, in a fashion that never failed to drive the impatient Kitty frantic.

“There! You’ve looked like you were getting ready to say, ‘ninthly, my dear brothers’ quite long enough, Sarah,” she protested. “Isn’t it the most unheard-of plan?”

99 “I think it is a very nice idea,” Sarah said calmly, “only I’m not sure that it’s at all practical.”

“Practical!” Blue Bonnet cried. “Who wants a thing to be—practical!”

“We’ll talk it over this afternoon after school,” Sarah said.

“I can’t—I’ve got to stay,” Blue Bonnet wailed. “Oh, couldn’t you both stay, too?—then we could talk it over.”

“Elizabeth, are you perfectly daft?” Kitty cried. “I’d like to see what the ‘rankin’ officer’ would say to such a proceeding! What’ve you got to stay to-day for? You stayed yesterday.”

“No, I didn’t,” Blue Bonnet answered; and went on to explain.

Sarah looked shocked; Kitty howled with glee—“Elizabeth Ashe, you’re more fun than a circus! Only I’d advise you not to play that little game again—else you’ll be having an interview with Mr. Hunt.”