"That visit had a beautiful ending," thought Lloyd, tenderly folding the veil. "Then I had only Fritz for company, but now I have Betty. I'll just stop wishin' I could run away from the Cuckoo's Nest, and I'll have all the good times that I can get out of this visit."
She felt better now. The tears seemed to have washed away the ache in her throat. Bradley was calling her, and only stopping at the wash-stand a moment to bathe her red eyes, she went out to see what he wanted.
His freckled face was all alight with a beaming smile, as if he were the bearer of good news. His hands were behind his back, and as he came toward her he called out, in the pleasantest of voices, "Which will you take, Lloyd, right or left?"
Forgetting that Betty had cautioned her about his love of teasing, and remembering the apples he had brought her the day before, she answered, with a friendly smile, "I choose what's in the right hand."
"Then shut your eyes, and hold fast all I give you."
Squinting her eyelids tightly together, Lloyd held out her unsuspecting little hand, only to receive a squirming bunch of clammy, wriggling fishing worms. She gave a loud shriek, and wrung the hand that the worms had touched, as if it had been stung.
"Oo-ooh! Bradley Appleton! You horrid boy!" she cried. "How could you be so mean? There's nothing I hate like worms. I could touch a mouse or even a snake soonah than those bare crawly things! Oh, I'll nevah, nevah be able to get the feel of them off my hands, even if I should scrub them a week. I don't mind things with feet, but the feel of the squirmin' is awful!"
Bradley laughed so loudly over the success of his joke, that Betty came out smiling to see what was the matter, and was surprised to see Lloyd marching indignantly into the house, her head held high and her face very red.
"Well, I didn't do anything but give her a handful of angleworms," said Bradley, in reply to Betty's demand for an explanation. "Molly heard her say that she despised worms, and that nothing could make her touch one or put it on a hook. I was just showing her for her own good that there is nothing to be afraid of in a harmless little fishing-worm, and she had to go off and get mad. Girls are such touchy things. They make me tired."