"Joy!"
"Isn't it wonderful? Oh, Blue Bonnet, I don't know how all these things have come to me. They are so much more than I deserve; but I shall try hard to be worthy and to do Miss North credit. You have no idea how I long to make it up to her."
This was a long speech for quiet Joy, and it was a good thing for both girls that Carita appeared at that moment, for the flood gates were opened and a deluge threatened.
In Carita's wake followed Mary and Peggy.
"Mary wants you to come down-stairs and meet her mother, Blue Bonnet," Carita said. "She came for Commencement. Peggy's mother will be here to-morrow. Oh, dear, I wish Texas wasn't so far off."
It was but a few days before the closing of school and the halls and corridors were filled with strange faces.
"Annabel's mother is here too," Mary said, leading the way down-stairs. "She's b-e-a-utiful. Annabel looks just like her."
A fact Blue Bonnet found to be true a moment later, when she was presented by the radiant and altogether happy Annabel.
There was a half hour's chat, and then Blue Bonnet ran up to her room again. She closed the door softly and going over to the window stood for a moment looking out over her favorite view. Her eyes were full of tears.
"No, you won't—you just sha'n't cry!" she said to herself after a moment's struggle for self-control. The sight of so many girls had awakened all the old longings. "You've got the best Uncle that ever was born into the world—the best Grandmother—the best Aunt! You haven't any right to feel sorry for yourself;" and fleeing as if from wrath to come, she ran hastily across the hall and burst into Sue's room, where a crowd of girls were holding high carnival.