"That's quite plain," he said, "and I hope you'll take the lesson to heart!"
She smiled as she rose. Glancing up he was surprised to see how tall she looked,—quite as tall, he thought, as her mother had been when she came a bride to the ranch. Well, she was almost sixteen,—the other Elizabeth was only eighteen.
"You've done me a lot of good, Uncle Cliff," she was saying. "I think my 'indigo fit,' as Alec calls the blues, has faded to a pale azure, and I can go to Grandmother. She will be wondering where I am."
"Next time I see a fit coming on, I shall quote the Duchess!" he warned her.
Blue Bonnet was delighted to find her grandmother awake and ready for a "heart to heart" talk. Snuggled cosily on the bed at her feet the penitent poured out all her discouragement of the morning, and received the balm, which like the milk in the magic pitcher, bubbled constantly in Grandmother's heart.
In Sarah's room the two students were diligently at work, Sarah in the rôle of preceptress, hearing Amanda's French verbs, or helping to discover the perplexing value of X in an algebraic equation. Only occasionally did the thoughts of either wander.
"This is the second time," remarked Amanda, "that Blue Bonnet and Kitty have had a tiff. The 'third time never fails,' you know."
"Do you really think that after the third falling-out they'd stay—"
"Out?—indeed I do think so," Amanda declared. "I've seen it come true too many times to doubt it. There are always three fires—the last the worst; three spells of illness, three shipwrecks, three—everything!"
"It sounds rather—superstitious to me," observed Sarah, doubtfully. "I shouldn't like to believe it anyway, for it keeps you always looking out for the third time, and that is so uncomfortable."