This prescription compared to the preceding one was easy to follow,
and all through the next two weeks Priscilla, when she remembered it,
maintained that she was not to have the German Measles! For the rest
of the time, which was by far the larger portion, she was perfectly
oblivious as to even the possibility of her having them, so elated was
she over her preparation for the Gordon dance. She and Miss Wallace
and Jean Blackmore, who was really to be allowed to go after all, were
to make the journey, a distance of twenty-five miles, by automobile.
The two weeks dragged their days slowly along, but at last Thursday
night arrived, and Priscilla, with a happy heart, surveyed for the
last time that day her new dress, which her mother had sent from home.
“Just one more night to wait,” she said, as she got into bed. “Oh,
Virginia, I wish you were a Junior! I don’t see why Miss King won’t
let new girls go. Carver said if you only could, he would have asked
you, because his grandfather had told him so much about you, and his
room-mate, Robert Stuart, whom I’ve met, would have asked me. Then we
could have gone together.”
“I don’t mind. It’s been such fun getting you ready. Maybe next year
we’ll both go. Isn’t it the luckiest thing you haven’t had them at
all?”
“It certainly is! It just shows how powerful thought is! Really, I
have more faith in it than ever. You see, if they were inside of me,
they didn’t get any attention, and probably decided not to come out.”
“Well, if they’d been there, they would have come out with all that
heat, I’m sure,” said Virginia, still faithful to Hannah. “But it
doesn’t matter whether they were there or not, just so long as they’re
not here. Good-night.”
In the gray early morning Virginia was rudely awakened by some one
shaking her. She sat up in bed to find Priscilla desperately shaking
her with one hand and the witch-hazel bottle with the other. Priscilla
was apparently in trouble. What could be the matter? She sat up,
dazed, half-asleep.
“Why, what is it? What’s the matter? Was the dance lovely? Did you
have a good time?”
At these last remarks Priscilla wept.
“Oh, wake up!” she cried. “It’s only Friday. I haven’t been to the
dance at all, and probably I can’t go, because I’ve got them; yes, I
have! My head aches, and my throat’s sore, and I’m hot, and my eyes
run, and I hate everybody, and I’ll be lumpy and speckled right away—I
_know_ I shall! Oh, what shall I do?”
The last sentence ended in a long, heart-broken wail, which brought
the still dazed Virginia thoroughly to her senses. She sprang from
bed, turned on the light, and scrutinized the disconsolate Priscilla.
Yes, her cheeks were most assuredly flushed, and her eyes were
watery—from tears. Virginia was mistress of the situation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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