“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?”

352 “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.

353 “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 Bonnet354 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 Kitty355 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.

356 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,357 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 simply358 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.

359 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?360 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—
“‘Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,’”

“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 whom361 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 they362 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 ............