"It wasn't your fault, Blue Bonnet," said Kitty, returning the kiss warmly. "Served me right for being such a peacock."
"Then all's serene on the Potomac?" Blue Bonnet questioned.
And with a reassuring, though somewhat shaky smile, Kitty returned:
CHAPTER VIII
CONSEQUENCES
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 Señora is not well," replied Juanita.