“Elizabeth,” Alec asked the next morning, as they were on their way to school, “what was that Mrs. Clyde called you just now?”

“Blue Bonnet. My name is Elizabeth Blue Bonnet Ashe. Alec, I wish you’d call me that, too, instead of Elizabeth.”

“I most certainly will. Are you named after the ranch?”

“Partly; partly after the flower. The Blue Bonnet is our State flower.”

“How jolly! But why on earth haven’t we been calling you that all along?—Blue Bonnet seems much more suitable for you than Elizabeth.”

“Oh—because.”

“You’re awfully fond of that—‘because.’”

“It’s such a convenient word.”

“From your point of view. From mine—it’s rather inadequate. See here, Blue Bonnet, is that why your uncle is so fond of whistling ‘All the Blue Bonnets’?”

“Yes. Whistle it for me right now, please, Alec!”

141 “I guess not.—To think how I’ve been Elizabething you all this time!”

“I’ve never minded your way of saying it—nor Kitty’s; it didn’t sound so very hard to live up to. But when Aunt Lucinda used to say it, in a particular sort of tone she has, it was—depressing. You couldn’t say Blue Bonnet that way, could you?”

“Doesn’t that remain to be seen?” Alec laughed.

The new, or rather the old, name spread like wildfire among Blue Bonnet’s especial friends—Kitty, like Alec, declaring it far more appropriate to its owner than the more formal Elizabeth.

“Oh, Blue Bonnet,” she asked one afternoon a few days later, “had your friend Mrs. Prior to tea lately?”

“No.”

“Being such an intimate friend, of course you know she’s sick?”

“Kitty, don’t be horrid!—No, I didn’t know it.”

“Papa doesn’t think she’s going to get well. He says he’s never seen anyone more anxious not to.”

“Kitty, how dreadful!”

“I don’t know,” Kitty answered, with unusual gravity; “she hasn’t much to live for.”

Blue Bonnet’s eyes were very pitiful. “And I meant to do so much for her!” She went home in quiet mood. It was like a day in early October,142 rather than November. How could anyone, on such a day, not want to live! She wished she might go out to the town farm; but Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda were making calls, and she must wait until their return to ask permission.

She took her books out to the hammock on the sunny back piazza, finding it even harder than usual to fix her thoughts on her studies; they would wander to the bare old house, out beyond the turnpike.

Alec, coming over, came upon her before she heard him. “Is it a brown study?” he asked. “It looks a little like a blue one.”

“Alec, did you know that poor old Mrs. Prior was sick?”

Alec sat down on the steps. “She isn’t—now. I just met Dr. Clark.”

“Alec, I simply hate myself!”

“What in the world is up now, Blue Bonnet?”

“I meant to be such a friend to her—she said she hadn’t any friends.”

“I think you did your share—you gave her one good time; that’s a whole lot more than any of the rest of us ever thought of doing. And she’s got her friends now, Blue Bonnet,—so don’t you worry.”

Blue Bonnet sighed. “I reckon, Aunt Lucinda would have let me take her some flowers, or something, now and then; but I just forgot all about143 her—after the first. A pretty friend she must have thought me!”

“I daresay she did,” Alec answered. “It strikes me, young lady, you’d better come up out of those depths and get to business.”

Blue Bonnet took up her history. “I’ve read it over three times, and I don’t remember one word of it. It’s very stupid anyhow. Who wants to know about a lot of battles that happened before one was born?”

“Miss Rankin will, for one,” Alec laughed. He got up, whistling to Bob and Ben, who were having a game of tag on the lawn with Solomon. “I’m off. Mind you quit worrying and tend to that history.”

“Grandmother,” Blue Bonnet asked that evening, “may I send some flowers—for Mrs. Prior?”

“Certainly, dear;” and when Blue Bonnet had gone upstairs, Mrs. Clyde turned to her daughter. “It is getting to be ‘may I?’ much more frequently than ‘I’m going to,’ Lucinda.”

“Yes,” Aunt Lucinda agreed; “I really think Blue Bonnet has improved a good deal lately.”

The next day Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda went in to Boston for the night, and Blue Bonnet was allowed to invite Sarah to spend the afternoon and night with her.

Blue Bonnet’s own choice would have been Kitty.144 Sarah accepted the invitation with pleasure. “I’d like to come very much, Blue Bonnet,” she said; “I’ll ask Mother at noon.”

“I’d’ve loved it,” Kitty said; “you’d have a lot more fun, if you’d’ve asked me, Blue Bonnet Ashe.”

“I might have had too much,” Blue Bonnet laughed. “I reckon Aunt Lucinda must have thought so. I’ll try to have you next time, Kitty.”

“Second choice!” Kitty answered.

Blue Bonnet went in with Sarah that afternoon, while she got her things. It was the afternoon of the church sewing society, held this time at the parsonage. Blue Bonnet was much interested in the scene. “Only some of the things aren’t very—pretty,” she told herself. If ever she joined a sewing society,—which it was hard to imagine herself doing—she should insist on making pretty things—they were so much more really important than just necessary ones.

Sarah kept her waiting quite a while. The Blake family was a large one; and Sarah, as the eldest child, was burdened with many cares. It was almost unprecedented, her going away for the night. Quite a small army of protesting children followed her and Blue Bonnet down to the gate.

The moment it had clicked behind them, Blue Bonnet turned to Sarah. “What are they making all those things for?”

145 “They’re getting a box ready.”

“A box?”

“Dear me, Blue Bonnet, don’t you understand?” and Sarah explained.

“Where is it going?” Blue Bonnet asked.

“I think—why, Blue Bonnet, it’s going to Texas!”

“I wish I could go in it,” Blue Bonnet said wistfully.

“You’d take up too much room; and you wouldn’t get much fresh air on the way.”

“Whom is it going to?”

“A Rev. Mr. Judson, I think; he’s a church missionary, and very poor. They’ve a lot of children.”

“Why don’t they send prettier things?”

“Useful things are much better,” Sarah answered. “Blue Bonnet, let’s—”

“Things can be pretty and useful too,” Blue Bonnet interrupted.

“I guess they’ll be very glad to get it,” Sarah said. “Blue Bonnet, let’s study this afternoon; then we can have the evening to enjoy ourselves in.”

“All right,” the other agreed cheerfully. “But you’ve got to keep strictly to the thing in hand, if you’re going to study with me, Sarah Blake.”

Blue Bonnet’s preparations for studying were146 rather a surprise to Sarah. They consisted of two great chairs drawn close to the broad west window in the dining-room, a dish of apples, and another of cookies. “One can’t work well when one’s hungry,” Blue Bonnet explained. “And one can eat so well when one’s working.”

And, in spite of Sarah’s protests, she was made to occupy one of the big chairs and take one of the big apples, before Blue Bonnet would allow her to open a book.

After that, however, Blue Bonnet settled down to her books bravely. Scarcely speaking, save for a little exclamation of perplexity or impatience, now and then.

Blue Bonnet was trying very hard to remember her promise to Mr. Hunt these days; in consequence, matters at school were running much more smoothly. She did not know how often Miss Rankin, recognizing how earnestly the girl was endeavoring to do her best, helped her over more than one rough place. She did know that she was really getting to like Miss Rankin and to want to please her.

“I suppose,” she said, laying the last book down with a long breath of relief, “that she’s an acquired taste—like olives.”

“Who is?” Sarah asked; Sarah was not quite through.

“The ‘rankin’ officer.’”

147 “Miss Rankin like olives!” Sarah exclaimed, thoroughly puzzled. “Blue Bonnet, what do you mean?”

“Doesn’t she like them?” Blue Bonnet asked, carefully selecting another apple.

“I wish you wouldn’t tease, Blue Bonnet,” Sarah said; “I’m not ready to talk yet.”

“Hurry, that’s a good child—I want to give Solomon a romp before dark. Solomon plays hide and seek beautifully.”

Later, roasting chestnuts before the fire in the sitting-room, Blue Bonnet’s thoughts went back to that missionary box. “Do you only put clothes in it, Sarah?” she asked.

“Put clothes in what, Blue Bonnet? A moment ago you were talking of examinations.”

“The box.”

“Mostly; sometimes there are other things—toys and books.”

“I wish I could give something for this one. I’d like to send something to—Texas.”

Sarah turned eagerly. “I wish you could; this isn’t quite as satis—as complete as we would like. There’s a girl out there about our age—and they’re so poor, Blue Bonnet.”

Blue Bonnet was on her feet. “We’ll go right upstairs and ransack.”

“Blue Bonnet!” Sarah’s voice was full of shocked surprise.

148 “Que asco! There, Sarah, you’ve made me say that. You didn’t suppose I meant anybody’s things but my own? I’ve got heaps of ribbons and pretty collars that I don’t need.”

Blue Bonnet led the way upstairs to her own room, turning on the light, throwing open her bureau drawers with an impetuosity that quite took Sarah’s breath away.

She soon had a little pile of ribbons, laces, and the odds and ends of finery that girls love, in the center of her bed.

“Oh, Blue Bonnet,” Sarah asked, “can you really spare all these?”

“Of course; there’ll be just so much less to take care of, and I can get more. But if I couldn’t, I shouldn’t mind. Sarah, do you suppose she wears gloves?”

“Why, of course!”

“Then I’m going to send all mine but two pairs—I hate to wear gloves! I’d send them all, only I suppose Aunt Lucinda would make me buy more—for church.”

“Blue Bonnet!”

“Sarah Blake, if you’re going to sit there and Blue Bonnet me—in a way that means ‘Elizabeth’—you can go downstairs until I get this bundle made up. It’ll save a lot of trouble—packing this stuff off. You see, Aunt Lucinda’s motto149 is—‘A box for everything and everything in its box.’”

Sarah was smoothing out the soft bright ribbons almost affectionately; new ribbons were a luxury at the parsonage. “How fond you are of red, Blue Bonnet!”

“Yes,” the girl said, “Uncle Cliff liked me to wear it. I wonder,” she looked up laughingly, “if that is one reason I like Kitty. Her hair is—reddish!”

“It isn’t as red as it used to be,” Sarah said. “Blue Bonnet, she’ll be so pleased with these—that girl out in Texas.”

Blue Bonnet looked at the little collection with dissatisfied eyes. “Sarah,—I’m going to send—my red dress!”

“Blue Bonnet!”

“I am. Maybe it’ll fit. If it doesn’t, I reckon it can be altered, or done something to.”

“Blue Bonnet—that’s an entirely new dress!”

“I know—I was going to wear it on Sunday for the first time. But doesn’t that make it all the better? I shouldn’t like wearing other people’s dresses.” Blue Bonnet went to her closet, coming back with the dress over her arm, a simple shirtwaist suit in some soft woollen goods. “Isn’t it the loveliest shade, Sarah? You can’t deny that this is useful and pretty too. See, the150 lace is all in the neck. It’s quite the prettiest of all my dresses.”

“But Blue Bonnet—”

Blue Bonnet moved impatiently. “You are the but-eriest set here in Woodford! Out on the ranch I did what I wanted to, when I wanted to,—that is, generally,—without all these everlasting buts. I just hate the word ‘but.’”

“Still,” Sarah held her ground determinedly, “I don’t think you ought to send that dress without asking............