Later, swinging in the hammock on the back veranda, she looked up suddenly as her uncle came to sit on the railing beside her. Something in his face and manner made her wonder.
“Blue Bonnet,” he said, abruptly, “we might as well have it out—right here and now—it’ll be the best thing for us both.”
Blue Bonnet sat up, pushing back her soft, thick hair. “Have it out?” she repeated.
“Blue Bonnet,” he answered, bending nearer, “suppose you tell me just what it is you would like to do? It wouldn’t take much insight to see that you aren’t very happy nowadays; and—well, I reckon your father wouldn’t want things going on as they’ve been—lately.”
The girl’s face changed swiftly. “Oh, I have been horrid, Uncle Cliff! But I—oh, I do so—hate it—here!”
“Hate it here! Hate the Blue Bonnet Ranch—the finest bit of country in the whole state of Texas!”
“I—hate the whole state of Texas!”
“Blue Bonnet!”
“I do. I want to go East to live. I—my mother was an Easterner. I want to live her life.”
“But, Honey, your mother chose to come West. Why, child,”—there was a quick note of triumph in the man’s voice—“it was your mother who named you Blue Bonnet.”