“Isn’t that a mistake?” he asked. “Will not your grandmother and aunt be disappointed if you do not try?”
“That’s the worst of it,” Blue Bonnet admitted. “Somehow, not doing the things that perhaps one ought to do seems to make one more uncomfortable here than it used to at home on the ranch.”
“It looks as though you were developing a New England conscience. An exceedingly troublesome possession to have around—at times, but, once acquired, extremely difficult to get rid of.”
“I believe you,” Blue Bonnet answered, ruefully.
She was sure of it, as she lay awake that night in the big bed in the spare room, listening to the unaccustomed city noises, and trying not to listen to the thoughts running so persistently through her mind. How disappointed Grandmother and Aunt Lucinda would be at her not trying, how pleased if she did; how proud Uncle Cliff would be, if she won a prize. And like an undercurrent through it all, her father’s story of the Alamo. How odd that one of those men should have been from a Woodford family! A connection of the family!
“I reckon I’ll just have to do it!” she sighed at last.
She did not oversleep the next morning; when the maid tapped at her door, she found Blue Bonnet up and dressed.
“I’ve had a beautiful time!” Blue Bonnet told the sisters, as she and Cousin Tracy were starting for the depot.
“I hope Cousin Elizabeth will lend you to us again,” Cousin Honoria said, and Cousin Augusta added that it was wonderful how a young person brightened up a house.