Recess that morning was rather a trial to Blue Bonnet. Talk of the coming outing was the only topic in the “We are Seven” set. It was hard to feel out of it all. Moreover, Kitty would not count the cause lost; she coaxed and teased, scolded and reproached, until Blue Bonnet’s patience gave way.
“You talk as if I didn’t want to go!” she protested.
“If you did, you would,” Kitty declared, “only you care more for a tiresome old—”
“She isn’t tiresome, and she can’t help it if she is old. You’ll be old yourself some day—there’s no danger of your dying young, Kitty. And—and you all say it was a shame—her being sent to the poorhouse. If it was a shame, why didn’t someone prevent it? Then I wouldn’t have had to ask her to supper and lose my fun.”
Which form of reasoning was too much for Kitty. Before she could think of a suitable retort, the bell had rung and Miss Rankin was requesting Elizabeth Ashe and Kitty Clark to come to order.
Blue Bonnet was unusually prompt in getting home that noon; and equally slow about returning. Being just a little late to school did not worry Blue Bonnet in the least.
During the afternoon Kitty buried the hatchet, forwarding a note by Ruth and Debby, in which she had written—“Never mind, I’ll get Amanda to ask her aunt to ask us all again—and I’ll take good care that you don’t go within a mile of the town farm for a week beforehand.”
To which Blue Bonnet promptly wrote her answer, showing less discretion in her manner of doing it than Kitty had done.
“Elizabeth,” Miss Rankin asked, “what are you doing?”
“Writing a note, Miss Rankin,” the girl answered promptly.