“So, sir,” Blue Bonnet pointed a warning forefinger at the upright Solomon, “remember, this is the day when Aunt Lucinda expects everyone—particularly, small brown dogs and nieces from Texas—to do their duty! The Boston relatives are coming. I can’t exactly explain all that stands for, Solomon; but I am quite sure it means that they are to be taken seriously—very seriously; and I’m afraid, old fellow, that taking folks seriously isn’t our long suit.”

Solomon looked distinctly bored; here was the eventful day, and though the morning was well along, there was still no sign of dinner—outside of the kitchen, that is; and Solomon had found, to his pained surprise, that the attitude of the kitchen was, on this morning of all mornings, decidedly discouraging to a small dog.

“Dinner’s to be at three,” Blue Bonnet went on; “you needn’t sit up any longer, sir.”

Solomon availed himself of this permission gladly, pricking up his ears at the mention of dinner; the subject began to get interesting.

“But the relatives come on the noon train—there209 are three of them, Solomon; Cousin Tracy Winthrop, Cousin Honoria Winthrop, and Cousin Augusta Winthrop! It sounds a bit alarming, doesn’t it? And oh, Solomon!” Blue Bonnet scrambled to her feet. “I haven’t done a thing to my room yet, and I’m to go to ride with Uncle Cliff directly.”

Solomon tiptoed upstairs behind her, rejoicing in the fact that it was not a school day, and that there was a ride in prospect.

“Excepting Saturdays and Sundays, this is the first holiday I’ve had since starting school,” Blue Bonnet told him. “Oh me, did you ever see such a room!”

Sitting full in a spot of sunshine, Solomon listened and watched operations, blinking at the rapidity with which his young mistress went from one thing to another.

Miss Lucinda had not yet been able to make Blue Bonnet realize the advisability of putting things as much as possible in order over night. “I’d give a good bit to see Benita come walking in that door just about now!” Blue Bonnet declared, giving the bedspread a smoothing touch. “But it won’t be Benita, it’ll be Aunt Lucinda. And what do you think she’ll say at finding you in possession, young man?”

Solomon’s manner implied that he willingly shifted all responsibility on to her shoulders.

210 “I wonder what I’d’ve been like now—supposing I had been sent East years ago—as Aunt Lucinda wanted?” Blue Bonnet said.

Before her companion had time to consider this, Miss Lucinda appeared.

“Solomon!” Blue Bonnet commanded, “your manners!”

Solomon advanced, holding up a paw politely.

Miss Lucinda took it, then she looked at Solomon’s mistress. “I draw the line at my room, Blue Bonnet.”

“Thank you so much, Aunt Lucinda, for not drawing it—any closer. You hear that, Solomon?”

“To hear is not always to obey, with Solomon,” Aunt Lucinda commented. “Your uncle is waiting for you, Blue Bonnet.”

“I won’t be a jiffy now!” Blue Bonnet went to the closet for her habit. “Fortunately, Uncle Cliff never seems to mind my keeping him waiting; I reckon he’s used to it.”

“I should call that very unfortunate, my dear; not to say, wanting in proper respect to Mr. Ashe.”

Blue Bonnet looked amazed. “I never thought of it in that way!”

“Uncle Cliff,” she asked, as they cantered briskly off down the drive, Solomon pelting along behind, “do you mind my keeping you waiting?”

211 “I’ve always supposed it was the way with women—young or old.”

“Then you do mind! Why didn’t you say so? Have you thought it ‘lacking in proper respect,’ too?”

“Bless your heart, no, indeed! Is that what you’ve been looking so sober over, Honey?”

But Blue Bonnet continued to look sober. “There’s such a lot to what Grandmother calls ‘one’s duty to one’s neighbor.’ Do you reckon I’ll ever be able to learn it all?”

“I don’t see how your mother’s daughter could very well help it, Honey.”

Blue Bonnet stroked the mare’s neck thoughtfully, looking out across the bare fields, a wistful look in her eyes—“I wonder why mothers and fathers have to—go away? One needs them so. I’m not forgetting,” she turned to Mr. Ashe, “how I have you, and Grandmother, and Aunt Lucinda, only—”

“I understand, Blue Bonnet.”

Blue Bonnet was looking out over the fields again; they looked gray and deserted, and the wind blowing across them was bleak and raw. Along the hills the clouds lay thick and lowering; Denham prophesied snow before another twenty-four hours. The few sparrows hopping forlornly from fence to fence had their feathers all ruffled the wrong way.

It was all very dreary, Blue Bonnet thought;212 and to-morrow Uncle Cliff would be off to New York without her, and in just a little while longer he would be going back to the ranch without her.

Blue Bonnet gave herself an impatient shake; her immediate duty to her immediate neighbor hardly consisted in spoiling his ride for him. “Don’t you want to give me a good old Texas run, Uncle Cliff?”

“And have folks think we’re being run away with, Honey?”

“There isn’t anyone around—I reckon they’re all home either getting the turkey ready, or getting ready for the turkey. And if there was, it wouldn’t matter.” Blue Bonnet gave the mare the word; the next instant she was off, laughing back at him over her shoulder.

“She’s almost as good as Firefly, isn’t she?” she asked, as her uncle caught up with her.

“She’s a pretty decent little horse, all right.”

“I wish she had a regular name. Darrel just calls her Pet,—and Lady.”

“Why don’t you name her?”

“I shall—now that Darrel’s going to let me have her right along. I’m glad you’ve seen to that.”

“Yes, I’ve seen to that. Don’t you want another scamper, Honey?”

Blue Bonnet pointed with her whip at a square213 white stone by the side of the road. “Do you see that?”

“The milestone?”

“Do you see how many miles it says we are from Woodford? And I promised to be in by half-past one at the latest! Indeed I do want a run—but it’ll have to be in the direction of home. It must be original sin, and nothing less, that always sets me traveling whenever it’s most necessary I should be at home.”

“Don’t you worry, we’ll get there in time,” Mr. Ashe promised; and they did get back just as the tall clock in the hall was striking the half hour.

From the sitting-room came the murmur of voices. “The Boston relatives,” Blue Bonnet whispered, her finger on her lips, and beckoned Solomon back, as he was trotting on in, on hospitable thoughts intent.

“We must make ourselves presentable first,” she told him.

On her bed, Blue Bonnet found her white serge laid out ready; she hadn’t worn it yet. It was next to the red she had given away—the prettiest of her new gowns.

“You see, sir,” she confided to Solomon, “this is an Occasion—with a big O.”

But standing before the glass to unbraid her hair, Blue Bonnet had what she considered a sudden inspiration.

214 The next moment, she was kneeling on her closet floor, diving eagerly into the big box, where she kept certain of her most treasured possessions. “Solomon Clyde Ashe!” she cried, excitedly, “I’ve such a surprise in store for them!”

Fifteen minutes later when Delia knocked at her door, Blue Bonnet resolutely declined to open it. “I’ll be down presently,” she said through the keyhole.

“But Miss Clyde told me, miss—”

“I don’t need any help, thank you, Delia!” Blue Bonnet insisted.

“But your aunt said I was to—”

“I’m getting on beautifully! Please go away, Delia. And—Delia, please don’t—say anything.”

Delia hesitated; there was mystery and, it was to be feared, mischief in the very air. “It’s past two now, Miss Blue Bonnet! And Miss Clyde said—she—she’ll be wanting you to look your best, I’m thinking.”

“I’ll look—you’ll see how I’ll look!”

Which was cold comfort in Delia’s opinion. She retired, in much uneasiness of mind, to the kitchen, devoutly hoping Miss Lucinda would not invade those premises.

“’Deed and she do be big enough to dress herself,” Katie comforted, not referring, however, to Miss Lucinda.

“’Tis up to something she is!” Delia declared.

215 Katie gave the big turkey an affectionate glance before closing the oven door. “Did you ever see such a beauty! And cooking like a Christian! Leave off worrying, Delia; ’tis no harm she’s up to!”

The tall clock in the hall was striking half-past two when Blue Bonnet came downstairs. Grandmother, wondering a little anxiously why she did not come, caught the soft swish of skirts.

It seemed to Grandmother that she took an unusually long time to cross the short space between the foot of the stairs and the sitting-room door; then all at once, she gave a little gasp of astonishment.

Standing in the doorway, in quaint, old-fashioned, red satin gown, with high-heeled satin slippers, and stockings to match, a black lace mantilla thrown lightly over the hair, dressed high, with a great carved Spanish comb, a red rose showing coquettishly above the left ear, on her slender fingers two or three Mexican rings in old-time setting, and around her throat a string of heavy gold beads, Blue Bonnet bore as little resemblance to the white-clad figure Grandmother had been expecting to see as she did to the laughing, bare-headed girl who had come rushing up the drive little more than an hour before, her hair flying in the wind.

For a moment no one in the room stirred or216 spoke, then Mr. Ashe cried delightedly, “Why Honey!”

The “Boston relatives” looked from Grandmother to Aunt Lucinda, from Aunt Lucinda to the demure-faced figure in the doorway. They had been prepared for a mere schoolgirl—someone very like what her mother had been at her age. It was difficult to imagine Elizabeth Clyde in such a costume as that.

Grandmother made the introductions. Aunt Lucinda was still asking herself why, oh, why she had not taken possession of that costume upon Blue Bonnet’s first showing it to her?

Then the General and Alec came in, creating a diversion for which Blue Bonnet, who was feeling rather breathless, for all her brave showing, was truly grateful.

“My dear young lady,” General Trent turned to her, after paying his respects to the rest—“or, I should say, Se?orita?—this is a surprise!”

“To all of us, General,” Mrs. Clyde said. “On the whole, I think I like it.”

Blue Bonnet came to rest a hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Truly, Grandmother?” she asked softly. “I—hoped you would.”

“Isn’t she stunning!” Alec exclaimed.

When Delia came to announce dinner a few moments later, she broke off suddenly in the middle217 of her sentence—much to her own confusion—to stare open-eyed at Blue Bonnet.

“If you could see her!” she said to Katie, escaping as soon as might be to the kitchen. “Sitting there like a picture—and that innocent! For all the world as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth! ‘And please don’t say anything,’ says she to me—and well she might! I’d like to be knowing what her aunt do be thinking of such goings-on this minute.”

“I’m after thinking,” Katie remarked wisely, “that the mistress herself do be enjoying the bit of a lark with the best of them. Sure and it isn’t the same house, since the darlin&rsq............