“Must it be a match for Victor?”
Blue Bonnet laughed. “I shouldn’t like it to be a match for Kitty’s Black Pete.”
“Well, we’ll see about it the first of the week,” Mrs. Clyde promised; “now, I think the best thing for you to do is to go to bed.”
“I’m not one bit sleepy,” Blue Bonnet answered,—“only sort of queer and shivery.”
At which Mrs. Clyde hurried her off to bed at once, coming herself to see that she was well tucked in, and to bring her a nice warm drink.
The next morning, it was a flushed and hoarse Blue Bonnet who looked up as her grandmother came in to see how she was. Mrs. Clyde decided that she must stay in bed until after breakfast, at least.
Breakfast in bed was a new experience for Blue Bonnet; and when Aunt Lucinda brought up the tray, with its pretty, sprigged individual breakfast service, that had been her mother’s, Blue Bonnet thought being an invalid very delightful.
The more so, as after breakfast she was allowed to come down to the sitting-room. She found Mrs. Clyde alone, Aunt Lucinda having gone to church.
The weather had changed during the night; to-day it was gray and lowering, with a promise of rain in the damp wind sweeping the scattered leaves up drive and over lawn.
Blue Bonnet curled herself up in a big chair at one side of the glowing fire, with a favorite book. In her deep-red dressing-gown, and pretty, fur-trimmed red slippers, she made a vivid spot of color in the somber room. And Mrs. Clyde, looking up from her own book more than once, wondered how she was ever to bear the parting with this second Elizabeth.