“Aunt Lucinda,” she said, going up to where her aunt stood waiting for her, “it was a very nice party, and I’m very much obliged to you, and I—I am sorry I was late, I—”
“You should not have gone at all, Elizabeth,” Miss Clyde said gravely.
The reproof which followed, if a little severe, was not unjust. Blue Bonnet listened silently, but her face expressed both astonishment and indignation. Never before had she been talked to in that fashion—and after she had said she was sorry, too. Her one desire was to get away.
“Is that all, Aunt Lucinda?” she asked, the instant Miss Clyde stopped speaking.
“That is all, Elizabeth, except,” Miss Clyde’s voice softened a little, “that I very much regret having had to speak to you like this and that I hope it need not occur again. You may go now. Good night, Elizabeth.”
“Good night, Aunt Lucinda,” Blue Bonnet answered steadily; but, once on the other side of the parlor door, her breath caught in a quick sob, and later, as she buried her wet face in her pillow, she told herself miserably that she never, never could live up to Aunt Lucinda’s requirements.
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL
Blue Bonnet came down to breakfast the next morning considerably less debonair than usual.
“And how do you like tea-parties, Elizabeth?” her grandmother asked.