"I expected to find you over-stocked on "em, to tell the truth. My, but you look grown up! What have you been doing to your hair? Does Miss Clyde stand for that?"
"Aunt Lucinda hasn"t seen it yet. It"s something new."
"The We Are Sevens are still clinging to hair-ribbons. I saw Kitty Clark this morning. She was on her way to school."
"You did? I"m wild to see the girls. I"m going home next week to stay over Sunday. That is, I am, if I can manage to keep the rules. I"m doing penance this week."
Alec gave a low whistle.
"What have you been up to?" he asked.
"We"ll talk of that another time. And you got your appointment! How pleased the General must be."
"Yes--rather! He"s no end pleased. It"s been his dream, you know. As far as I"m concerned I"d as lief take to ranching. I"m pretty much in love with that Texas of yours. Look at the brawn it"s put on me."
He doubled up his arm to show the muscle, and Blue Bonnet nodded approvingly.
"It"s certainly made you over," she said. "You look as if you could fight now. You"d have made a poor soldier before!"
The fifteen minutes pa.s.sed with lightning rapidity.
Blue Bonnet got up first.
"It seems very--inhospitable," she said, "but I reckon I"ve got to ask you to go now."
"Go? Why, I"ve just come!"
"I know, but Miss North said you could stay fifteen minutes--that"s all.
I don"t know how she ever happened to let me see you in the first place.
I"m just a bit in disgrace this week."
"I had a very pressing note from your aunt, that"s why, I fancy. I sent it on up before I saw you. Miss Clyde said I was to see you; she doesn"t usually mince matters."
They both laughed.
"She certainly does not," Blue Bonnet admitted.
"Couldn"t you ask to have the time extended?" Alec looked wistful.
"Why, I haven"t given you half the messages from the ranch yet."
"I might try. I"ll see."
She came back in a few minutes with Miss North.
"Miss Ashe tells me that you have just come from her home in Texas,"
Miss North said. "I can quite appreciate how much you have to tell her of her friends. Perhaps you would stay and dine with us?"
Alec seemed a bit embarra.s.sed. To dine among so many girls was not as alluring as it sounded.
"Oh, do, Alec--please!" Blue Bonnet insisted.
Blue Bonnet was invited to sit at Miss North"s table for the occasion.
The Seniors sat at Miss North"s table, so Alec had Blue Bonnet next to him, and Annabel opposite--an embarra.s.sment of riches.
The girls seemed overwhelmed with such unexpected good fortune. They acted as if they had suddenly been struck dumb. Miss North and Blue Bonnet took turns breaking the silence with trivial generalities.
To Alec it seemed as if the meal would never end. He answered the questions put to him mechanically, owing to his extreme embarra.s.sment; but he found courage toward the end of the meal to cast a sly glance in Annabel"s direction--a glance not un.o.bserved by Annabel.
Out in the hall, away from Miss North"s watchful eye, he said to Blue Bonnet:
"If you ever get me into a deal like that again, you"ll know it! It was worse than busting my first broncho."
And, although it was January, and the thermometer registering freezing weather, he took out his pocket handkerchief and mopped the perspiration from his neck and brow.
He made his adieux to Miss North very charmingly, however, thanking her for her hospitality; and Blue Bonnet left him at the reception-room door, conscious that broncho busting, and other things incident to ranch life, had not made any serious inroads on his native good breeding.
CHAPTER IX
WOODFORD
"Now, Carita, tell me all of it--everything you heard. Come on, I think I ought to know."
Blue Bonnet and Carita had been interrupted in the packing of their suitcases for a week-end at Woodford, by Annabel Jackson, who had stepped in Blue Bonnet"s room to return a dress. Her presence had caused Carita to let slip a bit of gossip prevalent in the school.
Carita squeezed a waist into the last bit of s.p.a.ce her suitcase afforded, and turned to Blue Bonnet.
"Oh, what do you ask me for, Blue Bonnet? I don"t like to tell you--really I don"t! What"s the use? Oh, dear, I wish I hadn"t dropped that hint. I didn"t mean to--it just slipped out."
"Go on. Tell me."
Carita sighed deeply.
"It"s just gossip. Like enough there isn"t a word of truth in it."
"Never mind. Tell me."
"All right, then: Mary Boyd says that Annabel Jackson is a perfect little toady--that she always finds out if a girl has money and nice clothes and things, before she has anything to do with her. She says Annabel has found out that you have a great deal of money, and that"s one reason she"s so nice to you."
"But I haven"t a great deal of money--not to spend here, anyway. I haven"t any bigger allowance than Annabel has--or Sue, for that matter!"
"Yes, but it"s got out about your ranch; that you have a lot coming to you some day--and--and that you brought me here--that you"re paying my way--"
Blue Bonnet turned sharply.
"Who told that? That"s my business and Uncle Cliff"s--entirely!"