"I'm not seventeen yet," Blue Bonnet said. "I reckon my clothes make me look older. I begged Aunt Lucinda to let me have them a little longer than I've been wearing. Yes, I like the girls very much. Good night."
In her own bed, under cover of darkness, Blue Bonnet had much to think about that night. Opposite her, as still as the dead, Joy Cross slumbered. Blue Bonnet's mind went back over the day. How full it had been—and strange! She almost felt as if she had been transported to another world. In the stress and excitement of the new surroundings her old life faded like a dream. Even the We Are Sevens seemed remote and indistinct in her tired brain.
She dozed off, finally, to dream of marching to gongs. Gongs that urged and threatened; and of a certain German individual who lived in a garret, and who growled like a savage beast if she made the slightest sound as she passed her door.
The next two weeks fairly flew along, and Blue Bonnet was too busy to be homesick. There were good long letters from home often; from the faithful We Are Sevens, full of news and cheer; and from Uncle Cliff, in far-off Texas.
Blue Bonnet found the course she had selected a hard one, with a good deal of outside reading in English. Then there was her music, vocal and instrumental. Practising took up a great deal of time.
The teacher of piano—Fraulein Schirmer—was very nice, Blue Bonnet thought, and she was glad to tell her aunt that she liked her, since she and Fraulein had been such good friends in Munich.
Because of Miss Clyde, Fraulein took much interest in Blue Bonnet, discovering a good deal of musical ability, she wrote Miss Clyde.
Mrs. White still continued to be the joy she promised, and Blue Bonnet looked forward to her vocal lessons with the keenest pleasure.
"Will I ever sing really well?" she asked Mrs. White one morning, and Mrs. White had answered: