BLUE BONNET came in from an early morning romp with Don and Solomon looking even more rosy and debonair than usual. It was surprising how much easier it was to rise early at the ranch than it had been at Woodford. She liked to steal quietly out of the nursery and go adventuring before breakfast; she felt then like Blue Bonnet the fourteen-year-old, full of the joy of life, untroubled by fears of any sort or desires for the great unknown. She and Don in those days had had many a ramble before the dew was off the grass. Hat-less and short-skirted she had climbed fences, brushed through mesquite and buffalo grass; hunted nests of chaparral-birds; sat on the top bar of the old pasture fence and watched the little calves gambolling; or, earlier in the spring, had gathered great armfuls of blue bonnets from over in the south meadow. Now when she found herself away from the house, skirting San Franciscito in an eager chase for a butterfly, she could have thought the past ten months all a dream,--except for a certain small brown dog tearing madly from one gopher-hole to another, while Don, in the veteran's scorn for the novice, refused to be enticed from his mistress' side. "Where's Grandmother?" she asked as she entered the dining-room. Grandmother always sat at the head of the breakfast table, and her sweet "homey" face over the teacups, was the first thing Blue Bonnet looked for. "Benita says the Senora is not well," replied Juanita. The brightness all went out of the morning. Grandmother breakfasting in bed! It was unheard of. In her impetuous rush from the room Blue Bonnet almost collided with Benita. "Is Grandmother awake--can I go to her?" she asked, impatiently. "It is better not. The Senora prefers to rest," said Benita. "What's the matter with her, Benita? I never knew Grandmother to be ill before," Blue Bonnet asked miserably. "It is the shock, I think. The Senora is not so young as she once was, Senorita." Blue Bonnet turned away, sick at heart. In the nursery she found nothing to improve her spirits. Kitty lay languid and pale among her pillows, saying that her head ached and she didn't care for any breakfast. Debby, too, had kept her bed, declaring that she couldn't bear shoes on her poor lacerated feet. Amanda and Sarah only appeared as usual, and these two had their spirits dampened immediately by the sight of Blue Bonnet's gloomy countenance. The three of them had the table to themselves, the men having breakfasted earlier than usual and Alec and Knight having hurried through the meal and ridden off, no one knew where. Blue Bonnet was not conversational; everything in her world seemed topsy-turvy, and she felt that she must have an hour of hard thinking to sort things out and put them in their places.