"I'm going to miss the boy," General Trent continued. "The old house will be very dull and empty,--unless you make up your mind to be particularly neighborly, Miss Blue Bonnet."

Blue Bonnet colored and looked way. "I--I'll do my best if--"

"Will you walk down to the stable with me, Grandfather?" Alec asked quickly. "I've not shown you the little coyotes yet."

As the General walked away with his hand still on Alec's shoulder, Blue Bonnet turned to her uncle.

"Read this, will you please, Uncle? It came to-day."

He took Aunt Lucinda's letter, an odd expression growing around his mouth. But he opened it without speaking. Blue Bonnet sank into the hammock and watched him narrowly,--much as Grandmother had watched her as she read the same pages. She saw his lower teeth close on his mustache when he came to the significant part.

He lifted his eyes at last. "Well, Honey?"

"Well, Uncle?"

He sighed deeply. "Are you putting this up to me?"

She raised her shoulders in an expressive shrug. "I reckon you ought to have the deciding vote. I'm on the fence."

"Do you want to be a musician, Blue Bonnet?"

"I'd love to--if it weren't for all the practising!"

"Seems to me you play mighty well now."

"I'm very careless in my methods, Aunt Lucinda says."

Uncle Cliff winced. "None of the girls play as well as you do, Honey."

"I--I don't believe they do. But maybe, Uncle Cliff, that is a very good reason why I should go on with it. Maybe I really have talent."

"Wouldn't it be very lonesome off there in Boston? And won't it be mostly work and very little play?"

"I'm afraid it will. But, somehow, it's chiefly because it will be so much easier to stay on the ranch and be--desultory, as Aunt Lucinda says,--that I think I ought to go."

"I see, Honey. You _are_ developing a New England conscience!"

"I wonder?" she pondered.

"I don't want you to do anything just because it's easier, Blue Bonnet," Uncle Cliff continued. "That wasn't your father's way."

"Nor your way, Uncle Cliff."

"I hope not, Blue Bonnet. That's why I'm going to stop arguing right here. It's my natural inclination to say 'stay with me, Honey, I need you.' But I know I don't,--I just want you. But what I want more is to have you do the thing that's best for Blue Bonnet Ashe,--the thing that will make you say in the end, 'I'm glad I did it!'" More moved than he cared to show, Clifford Ashe rose, and running down the veranda steps, strode off in the direction of the stable.

"Oh, dear!" thought Blue Bonnet, gazing after him. "In the language of the cowboys,--it's certainly up to me!"

When she went into her grandmother's room that night--the room that had been her mother's--Blue Bonnet found Benita acting as lady's maid, brushing Mrs. Clyde's long hair. The old nurse enjoyed nothing so much as waiting on the little Senora's mother,--unless it was babying the little Senora's daughter. As she stood in the doorway silently watching the two, the sight of the rippling gray locks, fast whitening into snow, did more to sway Blue Bonnet than all the other array of arguments. Uncle Cliff wanted her; it was Grandmother who really needed her.

She tiptoed up back of Benita, but her grandmother had caught sight of her in the mirror and turned at her approach. Something in the expression of Blue Bonnet's eyes as she bent for the good-night kiss made Mrs. Clyde say hastily--

"What is it, dear?"

And Blue Bonnet, her tone reflecting the happiness her words gave, replied: "It isn't _manana_ yet, but I can't wait to tell you--I'm going when you go, Grandmother."

When they looked up, Benita stood with her ap.r.o.n thrown over her face.

CHAPTER XXII

HASTA LA VISTA

THE We are Sevens were packing. An open trunk blocked each aisle between the six beds in the nursery; in Sarah's room two more were standing, half-filled, one reflecting the neatness and order of its owner, the other bearing silent witness to the fact that it belonged to Blue Bonnet Ashe.

"What are you doing with that old stick, Blue Bonnet?" asked Sarah, as she carefully folded her riding-skirt and laid tissue paper between the folds.

"Old stick, indeed! That's the alpenstock Knight cut for me and Sandy carved,--I've sawed off about six inches of it, though it broke my heart to do it. It's one of my dearest treasures and I'm going to take it to Woodford if I have to carry it all the way!" Blue Bonnet declared vigorously.

"I don't see anything so wonderful about it," Sarah returned. "There are plenty of old sticks just like it to be had around Woodford."

Blue Bonnet lifted indignant eyes. "As if any old Woodford stick could mean as much as this one. Why, this has the initials of every one in both camps carved on it, and every inch of it represents a good time.

You've no sentiment, Sarah."

"I certainly haven't enough sentiment to make me rumple my best white dress with a clumsy old stick," Sarah replied.

"I reckon it ought to have gone in with my shoes, but it's too late now. How you do fuss over that riding-skirt, Sarah!"

"Well, if you want to know it, I've a lot of sentiment about that skirt. I wish I could take Comanche along, too."

Here Blue Bonnet amazed Sarah by jumping up and giving her a hug. "Oh, Sarah, I do love you for saying that! If you had been reconciled to riding that same old poke you had last year I'd have been so--disgusted. Won't the livery-man in Woodford open his eyes when Miss Blake demands a 'horse with some go in him'--! The inhabitants of the town will get a few thrills too, I reckon."

"Do you think it will be proper for us to ride there the way we ride here?" Sarah asked eagerly.

"Astride? We'll make it proper! It's the only humane way, Uncle says--a side-saddle is a downright cruelty. And I don't see why a parson's daughter shouldn't set the fashion."

"Then Ruth will get a chance to wear her riding-skirt after all--her heart will be stronger after a while. I've hated to ride when she couldn't, but she has insisted upon our going."

"That's just like you, you unselfish old dear! But Ruth told me that it was the next best thing to riding herself, to see you on Comanche."

"Did she?" asked Sarah; and then hid her face in the trunk so that Blue Bonnet should not see how pleased she was.

They were to leave in the morning, and trunks were to be sent to the station this very afternoon. Already Uncle Joe was hovering about, rope in hand, waiting to give the final touch to the baggage. He had found it necessary to keep very busy these last few days.

"We might have seen this coming," he said disconsolately to Mr. Ashe, as the latter sat smoking a solitary pipe on the front veranda. "Let young folks get runnin' with young folks, and they're never again contented alone."

"It isn't _young_ folks that's taking Blue Bonnet this time, Joe." Mr.