The argument seemed plausible. Blue Bonnet's sigh deepened.
"I shall employ a trained housekeeper," she said, as if that settled the question.
"Then you will miss the joy that comes through laboring with your own hands--the joy of accomplishment, Blue Bonnet. I hope you will change your mind."
Miss Clyde took a careful survey of a shelf where sheets were piled, and from it she filled her mending basket.
"Delia has overlooked these in my absence," she said, almost apologetically. "Linen should always be mended carefully before it is put away."
She straightened the window blinds to a correct line, closed all drawers carefully, and ushering Blue Bonnet into the hall, locked the door behind them.
In the sitting-room the rain beat furiously at the window-panes, a cold east wind rattled the casements, but a glowing fire in the grate offset the gloom.
Miss Clyde drew a chair up to the fire and took a piece from the basket.
"Bring up a small chair, Blue Bonnet. One without arms will be best." Blue Bonnet drew the chair up slowly.
Miss Clyde found her thimble and selected a proper needle.
"Go up and get your work-basket, Blue Bonnet."
When Blue Bonnet came down with her basket her aunt was holding a sheet up to the light.
"It is growing thin in places," she said, laying it on Blue Bonnet's knee, "but a few stitches will preserve it for some time yet."
The next hour was one not soon to be forgotten by Blue Bonnet. Threads knotted at the most impossible places; stitches were too long, sometimes too short. Her hands grew hot and sticky. At the end of an hour her cheeks were flushed and her head ached.
Miss Clyde took the work from the tired and clumsy fingers and smoothed the hair back from the warm brow.
"I think you have done very well for the first time, Blue Bonnet. Next time it will come easier. You would better rest now, and perhaps Grandmother will read to us until lunch time."
"Yes," Mrs. Clyde said, "I will indeed. What shall it be, Blue Bonnet?"
Blue Bonnet thought a minute, then she clapped her hands softly.
"I know, Grandmother. Thoreau! I read something of his this summer on the ranch, and I liked it."
Mrs. Clyde went into the library, coming back presently with Robert Louis Stevenson's "Men and Books."