re you putting this up to me?"

She raised her shoulders in an expressive shrug. "I reckon you ought
to have the deciding vote. I'm on the fence."

"Do you want to be a musician, Blue Bonnet?"

"I'd love to--if it weren't for all the practising!"

"Seems to me you play mighty well now."

"I'm very careless in my methods, Aunt Lucinda says."

Uncle Cliff winced. "None of the girls play as well as you do, Honey."

"I--I don't believe they do. But maybe, Uncle Cliff, that is a very
good reason why I should go on with it. Maybe I really have talent."

"Wouldn't it be very lonesome off there in Boston? And won't it be
mostly work and very little play?"

"I'm afraid it will. But, somehow, it's chiefly because it will be so
much easier to stay on the ranch and be--desultory, as Aunt Lucinda
says,--that I think I ought to go."

"I see, Honey. You _are_ developing a New England conscience!"

"I wonder?" she pondered.

"I don't want you to do anything just because it's easier, Blue
Bonnet," Uncle Cliff continued. "That wasn't your father's way."

"Nor your way, Uncle Cliff."

"I hope not, Blue Bonnet. That's why I'm going to stop arguing right
here. It's my natural inclination to say 'stay with me, Honey, I need
you.' But I know I don't,--I just want you. But what I want more is
to have you do the thing that's best for Blue Bonnet Ashe,--the thing
that will make you say in the end, 'I'm glad I did it!'" More moved
than he cared to show, Clifford Ashe rose, and running down the
veranda steps, strode off in the direction of the stable.

"Oh, dear!" thought Blue Bonnet, gazing after him. "In the language of
the cowboys,--it's certainly up to me!"

When she went into her grandmother's room that night--the room that
had been her mother's--Blue Bonnet found Benita acting as lady's maid,
brushing Mrs. Clyde's long hair. The old nurse enjoyed nothing so much
as waiting on the little Senora's mother,--unless it was babying the
little Senora's daughter. As she stood in the doorway silently
watching the two, the sight of the rippling gray locks, fast whitening
into snow, did more to sway Blue Bonnet than all the other array of
arguments. Uncle Cliff wanted her; it was Grandmother who really
needed her.

She tiptoed up back of Benita, but her grandmother had caught sight of
her in the mirror and turned at her approach. Something in the
expression of Blue Bonnet's eyes as she bent for the good-night kiss
made Mrs. Clyde s