said, as her grandmother granted permission to follow out a plan of Amanda Parker's.

Amanda's aunt had the second time invited the We Are Sevens for a week-end at the farm.

The girls were to take the street car as far as it would carry them—to be met at that point by a hay wagon.

Blue Bonnet was in high glee. A natural lover of the country, visions of a glorious time rose before her eyes.

She appeared at the corner drug store, where the girls were to take the interurban, a few minutes late. Aunt Lucinda had so many instructions at the last moment that she had been delayed.

The girls were all gathered, looking anxiously down the street. When Blue Bonnet appeared in the snowiest of white sweaters and tam-o'-shanter, as jaunty and blooming as if she were out for an afternoon walk, they immediately protested.

"For ever more, why didn't you wear your old clothes, Blue Bonnet?" Kitty Clark inquired. "That sweater will be pot black before you go a mile, and you'll be as freckled as a turkey egg without some shade for your face."

"The sweater will wash, thank you, that's why I wore it, and I'm not the freckly kind."

The shot was unintentional, but Kitty colored to the roots of her red gold hair.

"You are fortunate," she said. "I am."

"That's the penalty you pay for having such a peach of a complexion," Blue Bonnet retorted, and the breach was healed.

At the end of the car line the hay-rack was waiting. The girls climbed on.

"Wait," Blue Bonnet shouted, jumping off quickly, "I almost forgot I want a picture of you."

While she adjusted the camera, the girls struck fantastic poses, Debby perching herself airily on the end gate of the wagon.

There was a warning cry from the girls, which the staid and sober farm horses misinterpreted. Off they started at a mad gallop, leaving the bewildered Debby a crumpled heap in the roadway.

She was on her feet before Blue Bonnet reached her, laughing and crying in a breath.

"How stupid," she panted. "I might have known that gate would fly open. I guess I'm not hurt any."

Blue Bonnet felt Debby's arms and limbs and made her stretch herself. Then they fell in each other's arms and laughed until they were weak and hysterical.

"It's a good thing the roads are a bit soft," Blue Bonnet assured her, when she could get her breath. "You're something of a sight with all that mud on you, but it broke your fall."

"Praise be!" Debby murmured, struggling to remove some of the dirt that insisted upon clinging to her skirts. "I'll take mud to a broken limb, any day."

The rest of the journey was made in safety. Once the wagon halted for Sarah Blake to change her seat. Sitting just over the wheel was not altogether desirable. Sarah's stomach rebelled. The whiteness of her lips spoke louder than words. Blue Bonnet changed places with her cheerfully, keeping strangely silent after the first half mile.

"What makes Blue Bonnet so still?" Kitty inquired, surprised.

"Take this seat and find out, Little Miss Why," Blue Bonnet retorted with an effort. "Maybe you haven't as much regard for your tongue as I have. I want to keep mine whole."

The low, rambling farmhouse surrounded by green hills and ancient oaks, with cattle grazing peacefully on the gentle slopes, and the farm dog yelping frantically at the big gates, gave Blue Bonnet the worst pang of homesickness she had felt since she left the ranch.

Wreaths of blue smoke curled upward lazily from the kitchen chimney, and from the dooryard came the most tantalizing odors of chicken frying, coffee boiling, and fresh doughnuts.

Blue Bonnet jumped from the wagon and filled her lungs with the delicious fragrance.

"Girls," she cried, "just smell! It's chicken and coffee and—"

"Doughnuts," Amanda finished with rapture. "Wait until you taste them! Aunt Priscilla is a wonder at cooking. She has the best things you ever ate in your life."

Aunt Priscilla appeared in the doorway at that moment, a wholesome sweet-faced woman of middle age, and took the girls in to the spare bedroom to lay off their things and wash before supper.

Blue Bonnet took off her cap and sweater and laid them lightly on the high feather bed with its wonderful patch-work quilt—the "rising sun" pattern running riot through it.

"It's so clean I hate to muss it up with my things," she said, casting about for a chair.

"I speak for this bed," Kitty said, depositing her things carelessly. "I slept in it the last time we came. It's as good as a toboggan. You keep going down and down and—"

"We're going to draw for it," Amanda announced from the wash-stand where she was wrestling with Debby's mud. "It will hold four; the other three girls will have to go in the next room."

"Why couldn't we bring the other bed in here—I mean the springs and mattress?" Debby suggested. "Do you think your aunt would care, Amanda?"

Amanda volunteered to ask.

Blue Bonnet took her turn at the wash basin and then wandered into the parlor. She looked about wonderingly. Family portraits done in crayon adorned the walls. A queer little piano, short half an octave, occupied one corner of the room, a marble-topped table, the other. A plush photograph album, a Bible and a copy of Pilgrim's Progress lay on the table. The carpet was green, bold with red roses; roses so vivid in coloring that they seemed to vie with the scarlet geraniums that filled the south window to overflowing.

But over it all a spirit of peace and contentment rested—a homey atmosphere, unmistakable and refreshing. Blue Bonnet gazed through the one unobstructed window of the little room wistfully. Twilight was closing in. Somewhere out in the field a cow bell tinkled, and a boy's voice called to the cattle. How familiar it all was.

Amanda's voice broke the stillness.

"Why, Blue Bonnet Ashe," she said, coming in the room followed by her aunt with a lamp, "what are you doing in here all alone? You look as if you had seen a ghost. Come right out in the kitchen. Aunt Priscilla has supper all on the table."

And such a supper as it was!

The chicken, and there seemed an endless amount, was piled high on an old blue platter that Blue Bonnet fancied her grandmother would have paid almost any price for. Fluffy potatoes, flakey biscuits, golden cream and butter, preserves in variety—everything from a farmhouse larder that could tempt the appetite and gratify the taste.

"I feel as if I never could eat another mouthful as long as I live," Blue Bonnet declared as she rose from the table.

"That's just the way I used to feel last summer on the ranch after one of old Gertrudis' meals," Kitty said.

Amanda's aunt suggested a run down the lane.

Down the lane they ran, laughing and calling; old Shep, stirred from his usual calm, barking and bounding at their heels.

It was too dark for a walk, so the girls soon retraced their steps, settling themselves in the parlor for a visit with the family before going to bed.

"Do any of you play?" inquired Amanda's aunt, looking toward the odd little piano.

"Blue Bonnet does," Kitty announced promptly. "Come, 'little Tommy Tucker must sing for his supper.'"

Blue Bonnet went over to the piano. Kitty's remark served as a reminder. She was glad to repay Amanda's aunt for some of her kindness.

The piano was sadly out of tune, but it is doubtful if Amanda's relatives would have enjoyed a symphony concert as much as Blue Bonnet's simple ballads—the familiar little airs which she gave unsparingly.

After she had quite exhausted her