Miss Honoria and Miss Augusta looked at their brother; as the man of the family, it was his place to deal with such an unlooked-for emergency.
“We will go, by all means,” Cousin Tracy answered; he abhorred motor cars, and now he was called upon to spend his morning riding about Boston in a public one! Young people nowadays had the most extraordinary ideas.
“Perhaps your aunts would like to join us,” he suggested.
But the sisters, it appeared, had various duties on hand, which would prevent their going pleasuring that morning.
Strangely enough, Mr. Winthrop really enjoyed his morning. Blue Bonnet’s interest in everything was refreshing, her point of view, her own. On the whole, she was pleased to approve of his city, as a city.
“I’ve learned a lot of history,” she announced at the luncheon table. “It was ever so interesting really seeing Bunker Hill! But what queer little narrow streets you have in ever so many places! I suppose, when they first laid Boston out, they didn’t realize how much was going to happen here. Cousin Tracy’s going to take me to the Library this afternoon; I’ve been there before, but I reckon one could go there every time one came to Boston. Take it all around, Boston is considerable of a town, isn’t it?”
“Boston considerable of a—” Miss Augusta repeated, helplessly. She glanced at her brother, but Mr. Winthrop did not look in the least dismayed; on the contrary, he appeared to be enjoying himself exceedingly.
The afternoon was given to the Library, with, later, a walk on the Common. In the evening, Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta took their young guest to a concert. Blue Bonnet went to bed feeling that she had been quite dissipated.
The next day was a truly April day; showery enough by afternoon to keep people indoors,—anyone, that is, who happened to be visiting the Boston relatives,—but with sweet, damp odors coming from the Common in to Blue Bonnet through her open window, as she sat writing to Uncle Cliff, and thinking a little longingly of the broad veranda at Woodford, the big, pleasant garden, fast putting on its Spring dress. How could people be content to live their lives out in cities?
Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta were taking the daily nap that only a family crisis had power to prevent; Cousin Tracy was in the library when Blue Bonnet came down.