“Maldon will be relieved when he learns that,” Mr. Ashe observed.
The six received this latest piece of news wide-eyed. “Travel all the way to Texas in a private car!” Amanda exclaimed.
“Blue Bonnet Ashe!” Kitty declared solemnly. “It was a lucky day for us when you came East!”
The Boston relatives arrived on the twenty-first for a short visit; Cousin Honoria and Cousin Augusta looked upon Cousin Elizabeth’s proposed Western trip in mingled amazement and dismay; a little kindly advice, a little gentle persuasion, were the least they could offer.
What would she do on a ranch—where there were cowboys and Mexicans and—Cousin Honoria glanced appealingly at her sister.
“Mustangs!” Cousin Augusta felt that she had added the final touch.
Blue Bonnet left the room with a haste that Grandmother could only envy. “But I do not intend to ride the mustangs,” she said; “and I have always wanted to see a real cowboy; and Benita is a Mexican. Elizabeth was very fond of Benita; so is Blue Bonnet.”
“I think Mother will enjoy her summer very much,” Miss Lucinda said, patting Solomon; Solomon had been more than ever attached to Miss Lucinda lately. Solomon couldn’t understand just what was about to happen, but he had an instinctive feeling that in an emergency Miss Lucinda was likely to prove a veritable tower of defence.
It was that afternoon that Blue Bonnet came home jubilant, as she had that Friday before Christmas. “I’ve passed!” she announced. “That’s twice running! Looks like I was getting the habit! And I needn’t have worked so hard, after all; it wasn’t such a close thing. Alec’s passed too,” she went on hurriedly, seeing reproof in her aunt’s eye; “and the girls—Amanda’s conditioned. She’ll have to study this summer. I did think there wouldn’t be a single school book along.”