Blue Bonnet should develop her talent in this line. She
could come to us for the week-end always, and in that way we should
not have to part with her altogether. But we can settle the matter
when we are all in Woodford once more."

Blue Bonnet sighed as she finished and let the letter drop into her
lap. "When they were all in Woodford once more." So Aunt Lucinda, too,
took it for granted! She stirred a trifle resentfully.

"One would think I had signed a life-contract!" she thought.

Mrs. Clyde sought her granddaughter's eye anxiously. "Well, Blue
Bonnet, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking--not for the first time either,--of something I once
said to Alec. I wished, and keep on wishing--that there were two of
me,--so that one might stay here on the ranch with Uncle Cliff, while
the other was with you and Aunt Lucinda in Woodford, being educated."

Grandmother smiled and sighed in the same breath. "Suppose you leave
me and Uncle Clifford and Aunt Lucinda out of the matter entirely.
Just think how it would have appealed to--your mother."

The blue eyes turned swiftly from her grandmother's face to gaze out
across the wide sweep of prairie. There was a long silence. When Blue
Bonnet faced her grandmother again, her eyes were misty.

"I wish she were here to tell me. Somehow I can't make it seem right,
either way. Will you wait and let me sleep on it, Grandmother? I'll
tell you, as the Mexicans say--_manana_."

"To-morrow?"

"Well, _manana_ with the Mexicans means almost any time in the future,
but I'll make it--to-morrow."

Mrs. Clyde was silent, but the glance that followed Blue Bonnet as she
left the room, was very wistful.

CHAPTER XXI

BLUE BONNET DECIDES

[Illustration: "ALEC SURVEYED HER PROUD LITTLE PROFILE."]

"I SAY, Blue Bonnet, wait for a fellow, won't you?"

Blue Bonnet waited, none too eagerly, while Alec caught up with her,
and then, whistling to Don and Solomon, turned to resume her walk
along the grassy bank of San Franciscito.

Alec surveyed her proud little profile for a few minutes in a sort of
puzzled wonder, and finally as she kept on in the same unsociable
manner, he began with determined friendliness:

"We've never yet taken the walk we planned, along the _rio_. Feel
equal to it this morning?"

"There isn't time to go far. I told Grandmother I'd not be gone long,"
she returned carelessly.

"Another tea-party on?" This time he succeeded in bringing the old
sparkle