“And a very good thing, too!” Ruth remarked. “Now we shall have to work.” And presently, forming a circle about the pile of purple and crimson wools, were six work-bags of various sizes and hues.
There were other things on the table; Blue Bonnet’s pies, still intact, Mr. Ashe having deeded his share in them to the club; a dish of nuts and raisins and one of fruit.
“You must have ‘spent the hull ten-cent piece,’ Blue Bonnet!” Kitty said.
“We’re going to have a beautiful time this afternoon,” Blue Bonnet assured them. “Isn’t it the nicest storm?”
It beat against the windows in sudden fitful gusts, the air was full of the white, whirling flakes, and down in the garden were great, drifting heaps.
Susy looked at the white world without and then about the large, square room. “I always did want to belong to a club—and have a real clubroom,” she said contentedly.
It had been a nursery in former years, as the window bars and the bright colored prints on the walls still testified. Now the center table, the wide lounge, generously supplied with the biggest and softest of cushions, the quaint medley of chairs, big and little, the low hassocks at either end of the broad hearth, made it, in the eyes of club members, an ideal gathering-place. There was nothing breakable—in the ordinary sense—and there were no curtains at the four windows,—just shades that could be raised quite out of sight when necessary; and on club days, a bright fire burned in the deep fireplace, behind the tall wire screen.
“So you’ve got your work, Blue Bonnet!” Sarah said, taking up a skein of the purple wool. “Have you learnt the stitch?”
“I’m—learning it. Please—before you all begin, listen to this—” and she read them the letter received the night before.
“So that is what it was,” Sarah said. “How oddly she addressed it!”