The watcher was Delia, the second girl. “Oh, Miss Elizabeth,” she cried, “we’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
At the back door, Miss Clyde met Blue Bonnet. “Elizabeth!” she exclaimed, in tones of mingled relief and displeasure, “where have you been?”
“Following a brook with Alec, Aunt Lucinda.”
“With your guests waiting in the parlor, and tea-time set for half-past five! Go up to your room at once—I have laid out your things—we will talk of this later.”
Blue Bonnet stumbled blindly upstairs; sitting on the floor to change her shoes and stockings, she could hardly see the lacings for the tears blinding her eyes.
Everything went wrong; strings went into knots; pins pricked her. Worst of all, her heavy hair got into a hopeless tangle. She was struggling with it desperately, trying to get out the bits of twigs and dried moss, when someone, coming up behind her, took the brush from her hands. “Let me try, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Clyde said.
Soon, as if by magic, the soft thick braid was ready for its white ribbon. And all the time Mrs. Clyde had not spoken again, but the look in her eyes was harder to meet than Aunt Lucinda’s displeasure had been.
“Have I been very bad, Grandmother?” the girl asked, wistfully.
“I cannot say that you have been very considerate, Elizabeth.”
Blue Bonnet’s lips quivered. Mrs. Clyde gave a few finishing touches to her white dress and hurried her downstairs.