The other looked surprised. But why not? It wouldn’t hurt Blue Bonnet to make herself a bit useful for once; they wouldn’t take her much out of the way, and it would leave Netty herself all the more time for her own new blouse.
“You are sure you don’t mind?” she asked.
“Of course I don’t,” Blue Bonnet answered. “We’d better put them into the phaeton box,” she added, as she and Netty and the parcels went down the box-bordered path together. She felt grateful to Netty for accepting her offer; it was good to be doing something for somebody, one didn’t feel so out in the cold.
“You’re quite sure you understand where they’re to go?” she heard Netty asking, and came back to things practical.
“Don’t you worry,” she laughed; “they’ll get there all right.”
“But you’ll have to do your best, Peter!” she warned, as they started, “or we’ll be late home.” And Peter, mindful of the nearness of the supper hour, did do his best.
“Blessed be back stairs!” Blue Bonnet told Solomon, as he scampered up ahead of her on her return home.
But if Blue Bonnet came down rather flushed and breathless, and not altogether on time, Mrs. Blake, arriving at that moment with her husband, was even more so. “I know we are late,” she apologized to Mrs. Clyde and Miss Lucinda, “but it was quite—unavoidable. I—I was detained—most unexpectedly—at the last moment.”
And in spite of Grandmother’s assurances that it did not signify in the least, Mrs. Blake continued to look flushed, and, it seemed to Blue Bonnet, disappointed.
The next morning, Miss Lucinda came in to where Blue Bonnet was practising. “Denham found this in the phaeton box just now. Do you know anything about it?” She held out a flat parcel.