"What makes you think so?" Blue Bonnet asked rather abruptly.
"Why,—you will be leaving in two weeks, the girls said."
"Oh, they did." Blue Bonnet was thoughtful for a moment, then burst out—"Carita, what would you do, if you were in my place,—about going back East again?"
"What would I do?" Carita repeated wonderingly. "Why, Blue Bonnet, do you mean that you're not sure about going?"
"I do mean—just that. The girls have taken it for granted all along that I was going back with them, but somehow I can't make up my mind. Every day the ranch grows dearer. And being shut up in a stuffy schoolroom, and having to get up and go to bed by the clock, and having a place for everything and everything in its place—Carita, it goes against the grain!"
Carita gave a comical little sigh. "It's queer how things seem to be—cut on the bias, isn't it? Now to go to school, and see and know lots of people, and have libraries and hear music—why, I seem sometimes to ache for it all."
"It's a pity you're not Aunt Lucinda's niece. You'd do her credit. Now the only person I seem to suit through and through, is Uncle Cliff. He's been father and mother both to me, and I think that I owe him something in return. I can't bear to leave him all alone again."
"I know. I should feel just that way about Mother. She needs me, but, if we could afford it, she'd be the first to send me away to school. If I could get enough education to teach, I could help her more in the end."
"I reckon it's the end that makes everything endurable. It was the thought of getting back to the ranch that got me through last year. But I haven't let myself think what the end of this summer would bring. Every day on the ranch is complete in itself."
"But think how it will seem after this—when the girls are all gone, and your grandmother—"