Cliff parried provokingly.

Blue Bonnet sighed. "Well, I can thank Uncle Joe for cutting us out of
two whole days in New York. I'm sure Aunt Lucinda will be
disappointed."

"Aunt Lucinda--?" echoed Mr. Ashe.

"Yes, you see it was this way: Aunt Lucinda gave me a list of things I
ought to see in New York. Every day when you asked me 'what next?'--as
you did, you nice fairy godfather--I chose the things I'd rather see
and left the--the educational things for the last. You see the shops,
the Hippodrome, Coney Island, Peter Pan and the Goddess of Liberty
were so fascinating, and I'd wanted so long to see them, that-- Well,
to face the bitter truth, Uncle Cliff, we left New York without one
weenty peek in at the Metropolitan Museum!"

"Horrors!" Uncle Cliff looked properly stunned. Then he said craftily,
"Keep it dark, Honey. Maybe we can bluff."

Blue Bonnet shook her head. "Nobody can bluff Aunt Lucinda--I ought to
know! Why--Uncle Cliff--I believe we're there!"

And "there" they certainly were. While Blue Bonnet had been busily
chattering, The Wanderer had drawn in to the Woodford station.

Half the population of the village was assembled on the platform, it
seemed to Blue Bonnet as she sprang from the car steps. Grandmother
and Aunt Lucinda she saw first, and back of them Denham, the coachman,
bearing suitcases, umbrellas, magazines and wraps, besides holding on
by main force to a leash at which Solomon was straining frantically.
Beside him were Katie and Delia, on hand for a final farewell to Blue
Bonnet and Mrs. Clyde. Then came Kitty and Doctor Clark; Amanda and
the Parkers; Sarah and the whole crowd of Blakes, big and little; Alec
and the General; Debby, and a collection of sisters, cousins, uncles
and aunts that overflowed the platform and straggled clear out to the
line of hitching-posts, where all of Woodford's family conveyances
seemed drawn up at once.

The report of Blue Bonnet's ranch party had spread like wildfire
through the town, and the going away of so many of its most prominent
citizens to far-off Texas, had aroused quiet Woodford to a pitch of
excitement equalled only by that of a prohibition election, or a visit
from the President.

Blue Bonnet was swallowed up by the crowd the moment she alighted, and
it was a full five minutes before she emerged, flushed and minus her
hat, to ask breathlessly, "Oh, is everybody here?--I can't see anybody
for the crowd!"

"No time to lose," warned Mr. As