"Latin's a perfect fright and—oh, Blue Bonnet, what, do you think? Miss Rankin's engaged! Yes, she is, honest, truly. She's got a ring, a beauty! She wore it turned in the first two weeks, but now she's picked up courage and turned it round so everybody can see it. She's going to quit after Christmas. They're going to live in Boston. He's a lawyer—Sarah Blake's father knows him, and says he's right nice."
Kitty's patronizing air nettled Blue Bonnet as much as it amused her.
"Why shouldn't he be nice?" she inquired a bit sharply. "Miss Rankin's nice herself."
The remark went over Kitty's head, and the appearance of Sarah Blake down the roadway put a stop to the gossip.
It was the gayest kind of a little party that made the rafters in Mrs. Clyde's dining-room ring with laughter an hour later. Blue Bonnet had insisted upon Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda lunching with them, so Mrs. Clyde sat at one end of the broad board and Miss Clyde at the other.
Blue Bonnet's coreopsis had been rearranged, and put in a charming brown basket. From beneath the basket, and quite concealed from sight, were seven little boxes attached to yellow ribbons which ran to each of the We Are Sevens' plates.
Blue Bonnet could scarcely wait for the dessert to be cleared away before she told the girls to pull the ribbons.
When the boxes came in view there was a scream of delight.
Nimble-fingered Kitty was the first to open hers, and the rest were not long following suit, revealing to the enraptured gaze quaint and oddly designed gold rings, the monogram of the We Are Sevens forming a seal.
There was a rush for Blue Bonnet's side of the table, where that young person was deluged with caresses and many expressions of gratitude.