"I guess we can have one of our own if we want to," Amanda broke in. "We can originate one, can't we? Everything has to have a beginning, doesn't it?"
"Oh, I suppose you can call it what you like," Kitty said with a toss of her head.
There was some discussion, but Sarah finally received the majority vote and went in with flying colors.
That evening, from her accustomed seat on the hearth rug before a glowing fire, Blue Bonnet told her grandmother of the afternoon's experiences.
"The girls seem sorry to have me go away this winter," she said. "And, oh, Grandmother, you should have heard them wail when I told them."
She leaned her head against her grandmother's knee and a little smile wrinkled the corners of her mouth.
"I hate to leave them, too," she said. "They're such fun."
Mrs. Clyde smoothed the girl's hair gently as she answered:
"I want you to be happy, dear, but it can't all be fun. Aunt Lucinda has a plan for you, which I think we will begin with Monday. You are entering your seventeenth year, now, Blue Bonnet, and there are duties and responsibilities which you can no longer evade."
"I suppose there are, Grandmother," she said, "but--couldn't we just put them off until--well--until Monday?"
Blue Bonnet came down to breakfast Monday morning a trifle uncertain as to whether the day was to be pleasant or profitable to her. She had a very clear conviction that it could not be both. In her experience profitable things were stupid--invariably!
It was raining--a condition of weather Miss Clyde hailed with delight.
"Just the very day to go through the linen closet," she said to Blue Bonnet as they rose from the table. "I think we will begin there this morning."
Blue Bonnet looked out at the lowering clouds and followed her aunt meekly. She, too, was glad that it was raining; otherwise she should have longed to be galloping over the country roads on Chula.
Mrs. Clyde's linen closet was a joy to behold; a room of itself, light and airy, with the smoothest of cedar shelves and deep cavernous drawers for blankets and down comforts.
Blue Bonnet had been in the room occasionally, when she had been sent for sheets for an unexpected guest. She had brought away the refreshing odor of sweet lavender in her nostrils, and a vision of the neatly piled linen before her eyes.