“I wanted to make sure you were really here, dear,” she said. “You vanished so mysteriously right after breakfast that it was hard to believe you had ever come.”
Blue Bonnet had come forward instantly. “I didn’t mean to stay so,” she said; “I just ran out for a moment to see the garden—it was so good to get out after being shut up in the cars for so long. Then I got acquainted with the boy next door. He’s a very nice boy, Grandmother.”
“Alec is a nice boy, dear; but, I am afraid, a rather lonely one.”
“Lonely! When there are so many people and houses all around?”
Mrs. Clyde smiled. “One can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, dear.”
She drew Blue Bonnet down on the lounge beside her. “I hope you like your room, Elizabeth. I superintended the arranging of it myself.”
And Blue Bonnet, looking about the big, pleasant room, saw it with new understanding. “I—I love it,” she said; “I’ll—try to keep it nice, Grandmother.”
“You have had a pleasant morning, dear?”
Blue Bonnet hesitated. “It was nice—while I was out-of-doors. Grandmother,”—she looked up questioningly,—“have I got to do things every morning with Aunt Lucinda?”
“Do things, Elizabeth!”