tell you?" she said. "Here, take this mirror. Isn't it
splendid? Why, it makes you look all of twenty. You could go to a
Harvard dance and get your program filled in two minutes with your hair
like that!"

Blue Bonnet took the mirror and looked at herself from all angles.

[Illustration: "BLUE BONNET TOOK THE MIRROR AND LOOKED AT HERSELF FROM
ALL ANGLES."]

"It is rather nice," she said, and a rosy flush stole into her cheeks.
"But Aunt Lucinda would never stand for it. I know she wouldn't!"

"Change it when you go home then. But you are too old for
hair-ribbons--really you are. Isn't she, Sue?"

Sue thought so--decidedly.

Blue Bonnet picked up the ribbon Annabel had so scorned and smoothed out
its wrinkles gently. She hated to give it up, somehow; it linked her to
her childhood. She wasn't half as anxious to grow up as Annabel was. She
didn't want to look twenty--yet! There was so much time to be a woman.

The five o'clock gong sounded.

Blue Bonnet picked up her things and started for her room.

"Wait--the dress," Annabel said. She got out the pink organdy.

Blue Bonnet glanced at it shyly.

"If you don't mind, I believe I'll wear my own."

Annabel looked hurt.

"All right, if you feel that way, of course. Then we won't wear yours."
She handed Blue Bonnet the Peter Thompson.

"Oh, yes, you will--please do! You are quite welcome. I only thought---
I--you see, I have never worn anybody's clothes in my life. It seems so
funny--"

Sue came to the rescue.

"Nonsense. You'll get over that. You can't be so particular in
boarding-school. Everybody does it. If Annabel doesn't care, why should
you?"

Blue Bonnet took the dress and went to her room. When the gong sounded
for dinner she emerged, radiant in the pink organdy. A critical observer
might have thought the waist line a trifle too high, and the skirt a wee
bit short. Of the becomingness, however, there could be no doubt. The
gown was pretty, and it suited Blue Bonnet, bringing out the wild rose
coloring in the face that glowed and dimpled above it.

* * * * *

Miss North bore the reputation in the school, with pupils and teachers,
of being just. She was often accused of being severe--of being cross; of
being too strict; but even those who cared for her the least had to
acknowledge her general fairness.

Therefore, although it may have been in her heart to pardon Blue Bonnet
unreservedly, she felt that a punishment