"You were satisfied, then, Honey? It went off as well as you had
expected? You are quite content?"
Blue Bonnet hesitated before she replied.
"What is it, Honey? Speak up. Have we left something undone?"
"There's just one thing, Uncle Cliff. I'm almost ashamed to mention it
in the face of all you've done to-day--but--it's about Gabriel. If we
could only do something for the poor little fellow. Oh, Uncle Cliff, you
can't think how it hurts me to see him fading away in that place,
when--when there's sunshine going to waste on the Blue Bonnet ranch, and
ponies eating their heads off in the stables."
"I thought of that, too, Honey, and--I wasn't going to tell you
to-night, Blue Bonnet--you've had enough excitement for one day; but
Miss Clyde went to see Gabriel this morning--that was her business
engagement--and we're going to take the little chap to Woodford with his
nurse for a while. Miss Clyde thinks that she can find a boarding-place.
When he gets stronger we'll get him down to the ranch; down into God's
own country, Honey, where people have to look in the dictionary to find
out what 'tuberculosis' means. There! there! I knew I shouldn't have
told you to-night. You're all worn out. Come, come, Honey! the girls are
waiting for you."
But Blue Bonnet, arms about her uncle's neck, was sobbing out the
gladness of her heart.
* * * * *
It was on the way back to the hotel from church the next day that Blue
Bonnet, lagging a bit behind Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda, said to
Kitty:
"I don't know whether you girls will enjoy the visit we have to pay to
the relatives to-day very much or not. It won't be exciting, but
Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda would be hurt if we didn't go."
"I think it's about time we were considering somebody besides ourselves
after all that's been done for us," Kitty replied. "I shall love to go,
myself. I met your Cousin Tracy once in Woodford and I liked him ever so
much."
And the others, whether out of courtesy or not, echoed Kitty's
sentiments.
But the afternoon proved far from stupid. Cousin Tracy went to great
lengths to be entertaining, and Cousin Honora and Cousin Augusta were so
hospitable in their quaint surroundings that Kitty whispered to Blue
Bonnet:
"I feel as if they had stepped out of a book--Cranford,--or something!"
An announcement that Blue Bonnet scarcely knew whether to take as a
compliment or not. She recalled the refinement of the Cranford family,
but to be so far behind the time in this day and generation.
Kitty saw the puzzled expression and qualified the remark instantly.
"I mean they are so aristocratic--there is such an atmosphere about
them."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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