Miss Clyde was silent. Discretion and diplomacy often availed where hard
and fast rules failed with Blue Bonnet. She could be led, easily--never
driven.
Miss Clyde's silence puzzled Blue Bonnet more than the unexpected news
that she was to remain in Woodford another three months had done. She
was unusually keen and alert, intuitive to a degree, and while Aunt
Lucinda's manner was all that could be desired, she felt that she had
been a disappointment in some way. She rose a little wearily and going
to the piano ran her fingers over the keys.
"Let us have a little music, dear, before we retire. It will seem good
to hear you play again," Mrs. Clyde said.
Blue Bonnet drifted into one air after another listlessly, as if her
thoughts were miles away from the keyboard over which her hands wandered
so prettily. The familiar melodies floated plaintively through the still
room. She played half through an old favorite, then rose suddenly. When
she turned to her grandmother for her usual goodnight kiss her eyes were
a little dim with tears. She struggled to hide them, and, excusing
herself on the pretext of unpacking her trunks, started for the stairs.
Miss Clyde had risen from her chair as Blue Bonnet rose from the piano.
She waited until Blue Bonnet had said good night to her grandmother,
then she put her arm affectionately over the girl's shoulder and patted
her reassuringly.
"I hope our little girl is not going to be homesick," she said. "There
will be much to do in the next three months--much that is pleasant. Some
day soon you and I will run up to Boston and have a look at Miss North's
school and find out something about its requirements. We shall have a
good deal of shopping to do, too. Suitable frocks play as important a
part at boarding-school as elsewhere."
Miss Clyde smiled one of her rare sweet smiles, and Blue Bonnet felt as
if a weight had been lifted from her heart.
"Aunt Lucinda is a good deal of a dear," she said to herself, as she
perched on the window-seat in her bedroom and looked out into the
moonlight. "She wants me to be happy. I suppose she doesn't always
understand me, any more than I do her. I reckon we'll have to sort of
take each other on faith." And lightly humming a little tune she jumped
up from the window-seat and plunged madly into the unpacking.
"As long as this is Saturday, would you mind, Grandmother, if I had the
girls in this afternoon?" Blue Bonnet inquired at the breakfast-table
next morning. And Mrs. Clyde replied:
"Not at all, dear. They will be so busy in school during the week. I
will see what Katie has planned for to-day, and, if she can manage it,
you might ask them to lunch."
A visit to the kitchen resulted favorably.
"Oh, you're such a duck, Grandmother," Blue Bonnet assured her. "I'll
'phone them right up," an operation which consumed the better part of an
hour, since there was so much to relate after a separation of several
weeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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