Mrs. Clyde would hasten to the door to find Blue Bonnet decked from hat brim to stirrups with trailing vines in gorgeous hues, goldenrod and chrysanthemums tied in huge bunches to her saddle.
Nor was Chula neglected. Often she sported a flaming wreath—her mane bunches of flowers.
"Take all the flowers in," Blue Bonnet would call to Delia. "This week will see the very last of them. The man at the Dalton farm says there is sure to be frost most any night."
When the mail came on Saturday morning there was a pleasant diversion. Miss Clyde sorted the letters and handed a pamphlet to Blue Bonnet. It proved to be a catalogue of Miss North's school, and interested Blue Bonnet greatly. She seated herself in her favorite chair in the sitting-room and turned the pages eagerly.
"Oh, Aunt Lucinda, it's quite expensive, isn't it? A thousand two hundred dollars a year; and that doesn't include—let's see—'use of piano, seat in church, laundry, doctor's bills, music lessons, fencing and riding'—but then I wouldn't have to have all the extras. I could cut out the fencing and riding, of course, and the seat in church—"
"Elizabeth!"
Blue Bonnet turned quickly. It was the first time she had heard her baptismal name in months.
"I beg your pardon, Aunt Lucinda. I didn't think. Please excuse me."
"Certainly, Blue Bonnet. But remember that it is very bad taste to be irreverent."
Blue Bonnet brought the catalogue over to Miss Clyde, and together they looked through it.