The brightness all went out of the morning. Grandmother breakfasting in bed! It was unheard of. In her impetuous rush from the room Blue Bonnet almost collided with Benita. "Is Grandmother awake—can I go to her?" she asked, impatiently.
"It is better not. The Señora prefers to rest," said Benita.
"What's the matter with her, Benita? I never knew Grandmother to be ill before," Blue Bonnet asked miserably.
"It is the shock, I think. The Señora is not so young as she once was, Señorita."
Blue Bonnet turned away, sick at heart. In the nursery she found nothing to improve her spirits. Kitty lay languid and pale among her pillows, saying that her head ached and she didn't care for any breakfast. Debby, too, had kept her bed, declaring that she couldn't bear shoes on her poor lacerated feet. Amanda and Sarah only appeared as usual, and these two had their spirits dampened immediately by the sight of Blue Bonnet's gloomy countenance.
The three of them had the table to themselves, the men having breakfasted earlier than usual and Alec and Knight having hurried through the meal and ridden off, no one knew where. Blue Bonnet was not conversational; everything in her world seemed topsy-turvy, and she felt that she must have an hour of hard thinking to sort things out and put them in their places.
Amanda and Sarah, respecting Blue Bonnet's mood, were silent. During this period of unusual restraint, a resolution was forming in Amanda's mind, and at the conclusion of the meal she made an announcement that would have petrified the rest had it come at any other time.
"I'm going to study," she said.
Sarah looked her approval of this decision. "I'll help you,—let's do it in my room."
Relief on Blue Bonnet's part quite crowded out surprise. "Then you don't mind if I leave you to yourselves?" she asked.