Debby still looked unconvinced; but then Debby was the youngest of several sisters, and her mother had a talent for “making over.”
“Please, Grandmother!” Blue Bonnet came to a standstill in the center of her grandmother’s room, “Aunt Lucinda said for me to come show myself. Do I look—partified?”
Mrs. Clyde turned from her dressing-table to glance with pleased eyes at the speaker. Blue Bonnet was all in white from head to foot, save for the spray of crimson holly berries in her brown hair. “You look,” Grandmother said slowly, “very happy; and you are dressed as I like to see a school girl dressed—simply and becomingly.”
Blue Bonnet swung her fan by its slender chain,—they had been Alec’s Christmas present; “Aunt Lucinda wasn’t taking any chances to-night; she didn’t send Delia.”
Grandmother smiled. “This party is in honor of ‘Miss Elizabeth Blue Bonnet Ashe,’ not ‘Señorita.’”
“And I’m on time! Grandmother, you look lovely!” Blue Bonnet’s eyes sparkled. “Just as I like to see—a grandmother dressed.”
“And now, having exchanged compliments, shall we go down?” Mrs. Clyde asked.
In the hall below, they found Mr. Ashe waiting.
“Well! well!” he said, as Blue Bonnet swept him a courtesy, “I wish Uncle Joe and the folks back there could see you, Honey!”
“Come and have a turn before anyone gets here!” Blue Bonnet begged, as from the back parlor came the strains of old “Uncle Tim’s” fiddle. “Uncle Tim” and his grandson “Young Tim” were Woodford’s standbys in affairs of this sort. No one could play dance music like old black Tim, though his grandson bade fair to follow in his steps. The old man’s kindly wrinkled face beamed now at sight of Blue Bonnet—“Want ter dance a bit ’fore de folkses gits yere? All right—yo’ shore looks like yo’ all ready for de dancin’.”